The Case Of The White Mask
by KayMoon24
Summary: Modern Sherlock solves Modern Phantom Of The Opera. John is kidnapped by the Phantom, forcing Sherlock to play the mad man's games. Includes surprises, book plot, interesting Raoul/Christine love, BAMF! Mycroft, and plenty of poor French translations.
1. Intro

_**AN: **And so begins...my take on Sherlock and John solving the Modern!Case Of The Phantom Of The Opera. This should be interesting. Oh dear, what have I done.  
>Also: I am doing a TON of research into properly updating The Phantom Of The Opera. Book canon references all over the bloody place.<br>_

**WARNING:**_ This fic will range between Teen For T- To M for Mature. It may contain disturbing images, descriptions, talk of rape, death, sex, philosophy, drugs, bits of mushed up romance/ talked about /slighted acted upon slash/heterosexual intentions. Am I making myself clear? It's ***asterisked* for just about every damn thing.** Oh, and language._**_ If any of this offends you, please stop your eyeballs from reading...now._**

_Special thanks to **Charm And Strange**, as always, for being supportive beta and frankly, putting up with me._

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><p><strong>~*Intro*~<strong>

_I stared at the ticket to Paris, France in my hand_, and it at least took fifteen seconds or more before a flurry of confusion and exasperation trekked its way from my sleepy brain and formed words on my tongue. I clumsily gripped for Sherlock's sleeve in the darkness of the cab, and, never to be missed, his pale blue eyes peeled themselves from the taxi's window and focused on mine curiously. I wanted to wipe that ridiculous smirk that was hiding in the shadow of his jaw line completely off.

"Sherlock." I tried to keep my voice causal for the sake of the unfortunate bloke that had to drive us this bloody night. Or was it morning?

"Yes?" his voice was quiet as well, but upon hearing him speak I nearly didn't have the nerve to cast my abrupt anger down on him. His voice seemed to hold a certain explicit excitement and sheer genuine intrigue to an unspoken new case; his excitement was so overwhelming that I became confused for a moment and thought that it was he that had started the conversation, and not my silently controlled angry question. A quick bleary glance at the bit of paper in my hand reminded me.

"Why are we going to France?" I shifted wearily, blinking over and over to try to keep the heaviness from permanently settling on my lids.

"It's Paris, actually. Which reminds me, could you hand me that French translations book in your bag?" He suddenly dug deep into his jacket's pockets and pulled out his mobile. I remained frozen in stunned silence. He pulled his lithe fingers smoothly over the keys and when his mobile's light flashed on at his touch, my eyes nearly watered from the strong, pin-pointing frame in the complete darkness of the cab. Suddenly, his pale fingers came to a stop, and he glanced at me with a small look of confusion.

"John? The book. Please." Even in my unaware state, I did note that unusual "please" tacked-on to his usual demands towards me, and I decided that I might as well play along. Maybe it'd return me to a proper bed faster.

Slowly, I bent down and stuck my hand into my sloppily prepared travel sack until my fingers unmistakably touched a soft, smooth cover of a book. I pulled it out and studied it when enough passing lamplight had collected to read out the title in its entirety. It was, indeed, an English to French translations guide and dictionary. I had no recollection of packing it what so ever. Or even owning one.

"Where did you get—" I began.

"It never hurts to be prepared for this type of situation. Communication is the key to all things, John."

"I understand," I pulled my brows together again. "But…still, we've never owned one—and believe me, I'd remember this from that time we pulled the whole flat apart for all the books we own."

"Yes," Sherlock's answer reverberated with a click of his tongue against his teeth. "I managed to pick it up right before the taxi arrived." I slowly slid my eyes back down to my bag, wondering how much lighter my wallet actually was now, compared to the peaceful night before.

"Don't worry," He added as he, of course, took complete notice of all my actions. "I'll readily pay you back. Once we've arrived. I hope you don't mind Euros."

I sighed again, and opened the book carefully. "What—"

"Page 207, section 'O'_…__ Opéra national de Paris." _Sherlock nonchalantly directed me. I blink a bit more, and my eyebrows rose as his tone changed to an impeccable French diction._  
><em>  
>"Do—do you know French?" I asked stunned as I flipped to the correct page. I suppose I hadn't ever really considered the possibly of Sherlock knowing more than one language. And, giving his mysterious and aloof disposition most of the time, I'd have full reason of not knowing until now.<p>

Sherlock suddenly stopped typing, his eyes slowly locking into my own, and we lapsed into the progressive silence of a clunking cab and the nearly silent rustling of stormy wind.

_"Oui John, je sais français,"_Sherlock slowly recited to me, as if I had suddenly gone daft and wasn't just half-asleep. Not that Sherlock would understand what being half-asleep even felt like.

"So…you know French, and you didn't feel the need to tell me—"

"_Non_," Sherlock smirked to me. "Living in London, where nearly all the population speaks proper British English, John, really, the whole matter never really came up."

"Right…" I managed out, running the tips of my fingers down the book's spine. We lapsed once more into a small bit of silence, and I silently wondered what else I didn't know about my flatmate whom I had been rooming with for about a year now.

"I'll keep telling you not to worry, John," Sherlock's voice broke my thoughts, and, through the dark of the cab, he reached a long arm over and tapped the page I was on with the glove-covered finger of one hand. "I know that it's rather early, but I bought you that translations book so you won't be entirely lost. Just be sure to keep it with you."

"What?" I challenged back, noticing how his eyes never left the burning white light of his phone.

"I was thinking a "thank you" would be more appropriate, but alright."

I groaned into my hand, wondering if an open book would make a suitable pillow. It was too early to be dealing with Sherlock.

"…That is a 'good' thing, isn't it?" Sherlock's voice was low, and it caught me off-guard as I pulled my head back up. I realized his eyes were looking back into mine.

"Uh, no, I mean, yeah, that is nice, just—"

"Perfect then. John. Read the page."

I glared listlessly at his alert eyes, and squinted down at the wrinkled pages on my lap, and spotted a grand but distinctly old picture before me. It was of the famous Opera House in Paris—huge, beautifully carved, with many great columns and weather-battered gargoyles and angels that stared back at me with a tragic look. The photo was in black and white, but the definition below indicated that the_ Opéra national de Paris _was far over 400 years old. It appeared to me as a grand, mysterious colossus towering over the future of the modern world without a mouth to speak of its centuries of harbored secrets. _  
><em>  
>I slowly read my newly acquired knowledge out loud to Sherlock, whom continued to browse his mobile, until thankfully, he pocketed it, and pulled the book silently from my grasp.<p>

"Ingenious, isn't it?" He breathed, but it seemed much more to himself than towards me.

I simply stared at him once more, and clenched the ticket in my hand, my frustration biting at me more than my general wish for sleep.

"Is that where we are going? To this…Opera house?" I asked Sherlock between my teeth. He never responded to me though, as he was all-at-once absorbed in the translation guide, and I didn't have the strength to antagonize another answer out of him.

I leaned back uncomfortably against the taxi's seat, wondering how the hell this even managed to come about so randomly. Soon enough though, the sound of Sherlock gently flipping through the pages managed to catch my ear and that seemed to drown out all other sounds of the romping wheels and the now pounding raindrops, and I fell asleep once more.

I was shaken awake much later from the long drive than it felt, and before I knew it, I was suddenly in an airplane seat, inner-position, as Sherlock started out the misty window next to me. My stomach suddenly dropped as I listened to the crinkling passenger-beaten leather of the blue seat under me made its presence into my consciousness. _I hate flying. I hate flying. I hate flying._**  
><strong>  
>"So, let me just this straight. We're being summoned to France, to see an <em>opera<em>?" I finally sputtered out. The question had been eating at my insides since Sherlock had barged into my room at some ungodly hour and thrown a suit case at me and informed me of the location of our next summoning. I was so disoriented that my eyes could not even make out the large numbers on the alarm clock on the side table next to me. The imperturbable darkness that cast itself like a velvet black certain around London as I packed told me that it was much too early for anyone to have their eyes open.

"Do you have a grudge against musicals, John?" Sherlock asked me simply, smirking into his hand as his pale eyes continuously stared out the plane's window.

He seemed restless in a way—but then again, I can't imagine a time where Sherlock isn't quite bristling with some type of catching energy. Large, bleak raindrops drizzled down from a deep, black, still starry London sky, and streaked gently down the metal structure of the airplane. I could have sworn that as each one struck the window Sherlock became more and more enthralled in their sporadic pattern.

I sighed lightly, rubbing my fingers lightly over my eyes as I let them slide closed. I was exhausted. I had only just managed to pack an over-night bag, and I didn't even have a toothbrush for good measure.

"No," I finally answered, as I tightly squeezed my eyes, desperately willing some energy into them. "I just really would like to know why I was thrown out of bed at two this morning and now am now on a plane an hour later, off to France," I begrudged to the limitless man, trying not yawn. God, I missed sleep.

Sherlock simply turned to me with a look in his eyes of…uncertainty. My God…did...did he not know? Sherlock Holmes _not_ know? He then smiled—actually smiled, and the clash of thunder mixed with the roar of the horribly noisy airplane engine didn't help my foreboding feeling. Sherlock never usually smiled for anything normally considered 'good'

"You…you have no idea why we're attending this Opera house, do you…?" The shock in my voice was null compared to the striking bright and flawless happiness that seemed to rise deep from within some hidden chamber in the great enigma of Sherlock's mind. That smile had only allowed me a glimpse through into his inner workings.

"Not even the slightest." He cheerfully announced to me, as if I had finally solved some great game we had been curating an hour before. "Isn't it wonderful?"

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><p><em><strong> EAN:<strong> Indeed, short opening is short. But I have 30 more pages to show you guys. _  
><em> If you enjoyed, please give me a lil' encouraging review?<br>_

_ p.s.: Just so you guys know, this is going to be a VERY long story. I'm talking_  
><em> novel length. So, if you stick with me, you're in for a treat.<em>


	2. Arrival

**~*Arrival*~**

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><p>"Beautiful," I heard Sherlock murmur, twisting delicately through the room that the crime scene was dementedly decorated in pale ribbons, satin hangings, and gold tapestry.<p>

There was no red tape, no footprints of police boots, no static of police radios. It's abnormally quiet for a murder scene. The patrons and performers alike in the room all around stared at us with wide and unsure eyes that projected shock or withheld tears. I swallowed without relief. It was hard to imagine that this place where human camaraderie came together to produce such masterful shows of pleasure and happiness could succumb to the harsh, sobering schemes of reality.

_God, being in France is turning my thoughts to romantic mush. __  
><em>  
>Sherlock was already at the bodies, excited; I swear if I took one step further towards him I would hear his heart racing. We knew nothing of our doing here, what free-rein we were allowed, or, certainly, of this murder. I'm sure Sherlock took all of this as some type of early birthday present. I took it as too-late a notice to write a goodbye note to my bed.<p>

I breathed in the stillness around me for a moment, the chill riding down my spine. Although I was more awake than earlier, I tried to remember how we even came about to this mess.

Ever since we had taken just one step off the plane, it was an absolute nightmare of a rush to arrive as soon as possible at the _Paris Opéra_. A single mobile call was used to inform us of our hotel arrangements, which sat about a block over from the theater. Sherlock informed me that our director of such accommodations was from the manager of the Opera himself, a monsieur Armand Moncharmin. I scratched the manager's name down quickly in my translations guide. Lord help me if I ever have to repeat these names out loud.

The mobile call went on for most of the drive, and I couldn't help but quietly chuckle when I realized that I could hear the boisterously loud and fast talking French dialogue that streamed from Sherlock's phone from across the seat of the cab. Apparently from all of that chatter, the only things Sherlock had to report to me were that whatever our reason for us being here was, we could not need to worry about rent for some time, be that we solved their _problem_.

"Problem?" I remarked, glancing to Sherlock and back towards the black mobile clutched between his long, pale fingers. "You're serious? We've been called for—"

"I don't know," Sherlock slowly interrupted me, his eyes suddenly glaring into mine, an easily interpreted bodily sign for 'Shut up John, don't ruin this for me'.

As the cab stopped, the view before me of the real Opera House was something no image or description could ever do justice. Even as I try to type the memory, my fingers are failing me…if there's anything to tell you, it's that upon first glance, a sinking feeling stuck to me. A, well, foreboding feeling. Like we weren't supposed to be here. But, I don't mean just Sherlock and me. I felt it for… everyone: the couples skipping the streets, the cars chasing each other in blaring rush of midday traffic. The lights that strung up high and proud, the thinly planted budding trees that marked up the sidewalks. It's such an obscure and strange feeling—perhaps I'm just kidding myself. Maybe it's jet-lag. Maybe it's my brain not being able to comprehend the foreign language aground me, or from listening to Sherlock's long-winded speeches consulting French architecture.

The Opera was a massive monstrosity of pure white Sarrancolin marble (at least according to what Sherlock quoted at me), towers of Juca jade, and ruby studs. Glittering, smooth limestone shafts made up the towering façade, and an orb of glossy light green glass framed the top of the dome that capped it. Two massive, insidious looking gargoyles stared down at me from that dizzying top, and, oddly, before them stood two golden angels that looked quite disturbed next to their demonic neighbors. The marble itself was decorated with Gothic knots of bloated cherubs, flowers, and exotic Persian designs. Then, looking like a stop-motion-horror film in burning daylight, the beautiful faces adorning the stone turned darker, harsher…finally, into more silhouettes of growling gargoyles. Extravagant as she was, the Opera was worn, yet grandiose in her judgment, and she loomed over a city that seemed stuck facing tomorrow—she was rightfully out of place. Like when overclocked movie producers try to bleed careless colour into a prestigious black and white film. A time machine in central Paris. A very large _TARDIS._

That feeling of moving through a time machine just continued to grow on me—stepping through the massive, large wooden doors, feeling the hand-carved stone and winded heights of the columns that rose above us as we walked. It was, well, it was like I was stepping back in time to a place that people only could fantasize about. The world outside sped by and buzzed with technology and the future. Inside was a freeze-frame of the mysteries of the past resting within this great, stone behemoth.

I stood, craning my head up and all around me while we waited a few short minutes in the high-topped lobby. I'm sure making a gawking fool of myself. I discretely noticed Sherlock's tall frame subtly taking in the view from time to time, a pale hand striking out and touching a piece of carved wall or painting that, I'm quite certain, shouldn't be touched.

"_Ah! Monsieur Holmes,_ _D__ieu__ merci!"_A tall, very thin and very well dressed man strode briskly towards us. His face was long and neatly trimmed, but the muscles that lay under his skin were tight. His eyes looked down upon us with great anxiousness. He was wearing a nearly all black, with a hint of colour from a dark purple vest and black dress slacks. He had to be a least an inch or so above Sherlock's own towering height, but held none of Sherlock's acute balance. The poor man seemed to be a mass of jumbled angles and shaking nerves. His voice was low, quiet, and thick as he switched (for my sake, I suppose) into English.

"Monsieur Holmes, thank you so very much for coming," He shook Sherlock's hand weakly, and turned to me with a halfhearted smile. "Doctor John Watson, _oui? _Yes, thank you, thank you so much…"

He twinged off his sentence, his eyes glancing to the doors beyond us, looking quite alarmed. "_Est-ce que quelqu'un pourrait fermer les portes?" _he shouted quite madly. The heavy doors slammed shut behind us. I glanced to Sherlock for some type of explanation, but the look on his face was of such withheld delight, I wondered if he was about to break out into some kind of folk dance. What the _hell_ was going on here?

"My name is Firmin Richard," He began smoothly, as if he hadn't just screamed at the top of his lungs seconds before. "Co-manager and retired conductor for over twenty years here at_ Palais Garnier_. I trust your flight went well?"

"Very," Sherlock nodded. "But really, this formality is useless for my colleague and I. Where are we needed?"

The manager looked a taken back for a second, mostly from what was the happily demented look on the detective's face, before he swallowed and spoke. "Of course, yes, I'll escort you right away, the—the m-matter, it is below us from here—" He glanced nervously at me, as if to say: _'He's mad to want to go, but you, you don't want to go down there. I don't want to go down there, and it's my damned job.'_

I offered my best _Yes_- _I-am-as-mad-as-my-flatmate-smile_, assuring him that I was ready to take a look. The manager's neat eyebrow twitched.

Suddenly a sharp buzzing sound echoed around the lobby, and the manager's hand quickly dove into his breast pocket, pulling out what looked to be a grossly mistreated mobile. It had so many scuffs and bent parts, that I was a little confused to what it was doing on such a formal man. He quickly snapped it up, holding it strangely away from his ear, his face tensing up like he was in pain. He quickly gritted his teeth at whatever was being said, before muttered something very harshly in French, and very nearly shoving the phone back down into his vest.

"_Mon Dieu_," he whispered, closing his eyes for a moment. I met Sherlock's eyes curiously. "One moment please, gentleman. My co-manager will arrive short—"

A large booming of a familiar French tone bombarded itself into the lobby, cutting off Monsieur Richard and crashing into the walls and windows. I recognized it from the phone call Sherlock had received while on the cab: the large voice of second co-manager Armand Moncharmin.

If the first manager was thin and tall, than Armand Moncharmin was the polar opposite. Short (even than myself, I begrudge to you now) and stout, what the man lacked in body he certainly overcompensated for in voice. I'd love to tell you what he said, but his deep, French dialogue never transferred over to English. He merely pipped over to me, shook my hand heartily, and then over to Sherlock, to which there, he indulged in a large speech concerning God-knows-what. Sherlock's smile only became sinisterly larger. Co-manager Moncharmin, the Laurel to Co-manager Richard's Hardy, wore very nice clothes—but in a very messy manner, as if he had all but time to dress for the Opera, and then decided to run around all day. I wouldn't put it pass Moncharmin, however. His large face always consisted of a redish hue, possibly from never stopping to breathe when he spoke. I realized he was so ridiculously loud due to a hands free earpiece that he seemed all but tied to.

When he finished with Sherlock, he shouted a myriad of things at Monsieur Richard in a panicking tone of French, before bustling out the opposite door and disappearing.

Manager Richard sighed tiredly, bringing a thin hand to pitch the bridge of his long nose. "I am so sorry about—_him_, and the doors, but we have a peaceful image to protect, and now with you two here… I'll—I'll explain later." He paused, sweeping the room once more with his dark eyes, before sighing largely out. "Please follow me."

Beautiful, glorious hand-painted art work wallpapered the wide walls with smooth flourishes of aging gold and silver as we were led further into the Opera. Lavish carpet squished under our feet as we moved through a second large entry hall and then down surprisingly narrow hallways of the backstage areas, where the set and performance department sparkled and weaved. There, suddenly, we were met by a carved oak door, and lead very far down—very deeply down, really—into the underbelly of the Opera. Her stone and shiveringly cold intestines pricked at the back of my neck with uneasy claustrophobia. The lighting blinked and flickered, and after a time of being led zig-zaggedly through a mass of intertwining corridors to the back wings of the stage, Sherlock and I set our eyes on the most elaborate murder scene I had ever encountered.

I'll explain as best as I can to where I left off before.

The bodies were literally hanging from the ceiling, but not just by their throats. The swirls of ribbon that flittered down from the ceiling were tied neatly together at every joint over the two dead, completely naked figures. I couldn't believe it. They seemed to actually_ float_ in their creepy grace—not hang like the dead weight of a suicidal corpse—over the cool, wooden Opera House floor. Sherlock beckoned me closer, looking like a child that was visiting a large aquarium for the first time, nose pressed to the clear glass.

"John, this is—" He didn't continue, his breath caught in his throat, and he studied the ceiling for quite some time. I glanced up too, but I immediately felt dizzy. The lights and shades of cloth and twists of fabric that loomed above us made me feel bloody useless in figuring out where one ribbon began and another ended. The shadows cast along the wall were as much eerie as they were magnificent. The silhouettes seemed to be a still of two dancing performers.

I pried my eyes from the wall, and edged closer, squatting down to finally do my job. My eyes traced up the two bodies that swung gently on their strings. At each tight knot, dark unnatural hues of red pooled, swelling their skin at every wrist, ankle, elbow and knee. Two partners—a petite girl and a large young man. The pair was strung up in a mocked style of a dance step. The man's arms stretching out, stiff rigor mortis touched skin, taught with the stress of the knots in the ribbons which held him there. They were reaching out for the waist of the woman, (I swallowed as I studied; I say 'woman', but truly the body before me was more of a developing young teenaged girl.)

Her body, much like her partner's, was extremely fit and tingled with purple. Her left leg was stretched out and above her, rising towards the man's shoulder. Her right leg was pointed straight downward. The way her muscles fanned out from her strained contortions already created the obvious notion to me that she was a trained dancer here. A glance over the male body confirmed the same. She was brunet, small, and pretty for her age. Her small lips were slack, mouth open into the shape of a 'o'. Her eyes were wide open, empty. The frozen muscles of the rest of her face made her appear terrified. Pulling on some gloves, I checked over the rest of her body. There were sharp cuts in her right arm. Carefully, I pulled her away from her partner's false embrace, and my eyes widened in shock.

Carved into her chest, just with very small, very precise pieces of glass, was the shape of a heart. As neat as the wound was, it was deep. Extremely deep, slicing through the tissue and into the chest cavity. Someone had not stabbed the shards there—someone had slowly _carved_—breaking passed her ribs with incredibly brutal force. Her breasts were pierced with shards, trails of thick, ruby-black blood gliding down the rest of her torso. I held myself closer. The colouring of the blood proved to me that this wound had happened when she was still alive. I closed my eyes briefly as I gently let go.

_Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn._

God, I hated cases that evolved young girls. It must be that internal brotherly instinct from long ago. And I really don't care for suddenly being worried over Harry for no good reason. Now, with this. _Dammit!_ I don't like thinking about Harry anyways—but now. With this to deal with. I took a breath, steadying myself. _Focus John. _

Her arms rose up and into the classic pose of a ballerina, the style of oval resting over her head. A red piece of cloth held her wrists tightly together as so they would not fall. Without touching the cold skin, I traced up each neck, checking for asphyxiation or other struggle marks. There were none, save the dark purple bruises along the girl's thighs and her broken neck. The man had been killed by being hung. I continued to stare, my brows furrowing, breaking only to glance around the crowed room. The red marks around their abdominals were clear about what had taken place.

I took another deep breath before turning to investigate the man further._ Dammit Harry._

The man was basically spotless, minus the rope around his throat which created a very deep imprint of blue and purple, with minor bruising tracing down his neck. His body was also purple tingled. He had purple around his cheeks and lips, his face entirely slack. His fingernails were an interesting bluish hue, while his eyeballs contrasted with a slimy red from busted blood vessels. He was interestingly clean for a man that had just committed horribly violent act of crime and a murder. Did he carve up the girl and go have a wash?

I shuddered.**  
><strong>  
>In the end, there were only three things I was absolutely sure of without any medical equipment to guide me further.<p>

1. They had recently had sex.  
>2. The girl had been sexually assaulted before dying.<br>3. The man had died before her, by hanging.

"What do you think, John?" Sherlock's voice was suddenly in my ear, and I nearly jumped as I realized he was waiting for my own medical analysis.

"They—they both died from neck injuries, about eight hours ago. Um," I swallowed, trying to figure out the crime before finally outing the data. "The man's the only one that actually died from the hanging though, it's clear from his neck contortions. Struggled as he hung, I'd imagine. It's..it's weird though…" I stopped.

"Yes?" Sherlock pressed, his eyes glowing.

"He died…first."

"First," Sherlock murmured.

"He died first, but, not before he…," I struggled with the words on the tip of my tongue. Dammit, it wasn't that hard. I had been to war—seen men blown to bits! But looking at that girl. God, she couldn't have been more than 16. It just struck me all wrong. I blame Harry.

"What?" Sherlock hissed, desperate for more.

I swallowed, and then whispered, "He raped her, Sherlock."

"Did that kill her?" He whispered back.

"What?" I began. "No—"

"Then it doesn't _matter_." He returned darkly. "John, we're looking for the killer, not mourning their deaths."

I stayed silent for a moment, realizing that it was quiet enough for the people in the room to hear us regardless of how softly we talked. They all stared, mouths open, at Sherlock. It was obvious that _they_ were there to mourn their deaths.

"'Bit not good, mate." I hissed, giving him a glare and thumping his shoulder.

The hysteria of the room before our entrance suddenly dulled to quiet snifflings and hushed whispers. Sherlock met their stares challengingly.

"They," a small voice from the back gasped, "were…together?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock voice broke the silence of the room, save for the gentle twirling of the hanging ribbons. He sighed. " They didn't just come _arranged_ this way!" He raised both arms up, eying the ribbons again. "Even the _killer _knew this—I swear you people must be absolutely _blind_. They were, as my colleague would put it, 'lovers'."

The crowd shrunk back. Killer? I took a leap at what my current conclusion was.

"So, he rapes her, hangs himself, and then she hangs herself,"

"No. You said it yourself, she died of a broken neck—not from hanging."

"Perhaps she's delicate, the weight of her body as she hung may have done it,"

"Really John, think. Even I know the difference between a clean neck snap and broken trauma. You're denying yourself evidence that you know is true. Look his arms, the scuffs upon the floor. There's chalk dust over his palms, and in her hair."

"So?" I question, readjusting my view. "They're dancers. Perhaps when he sexually assaulted her, he held her by her hair."

"No," Sherlock glared at the bodies. "Her hair would be tousled, torn, ripped. Her scalp would have shown it. It looks only disheveled by shagging."

"Sex?" I began awkwardly, surprised by his term, "Sherlock—rape is—"

"No, John. They were having _sex_. They were obviously previous lovers. It turned into rape. You've seen the bruises on her thighs. She allowed him in, but when she said stop, he obviously didn't. I've dealt with rape scenes before. They're never this clean, the victim_ that _unscathed."

I stayed silent and let him go on.

"Then there's the fact that he died first. A struggle—but not by being hung. No. It's true, he was killed by the rope 'round his neck, but someone else did that. The pressure lines around his neck are horizontal, not vertical. His jaw line isn't even puckering. There's also the matter of the furniture,"

"Furniture?"

"There's no chair, no object underneath them, nothing to suggest that they simply hung themselves. They didn't just kick it away as they were dying. There's no bloody chairs in here."

I glanced down. "I see,"

"She could have removed the object yes—but still, she wouldn't be strong enough to strangle him, nor string him up. Especially not after being assaulted as she was. And besides. She had a broken neck while his body was still lying on the floor."

I blanched at Sherlock. "Where the hell are you getting this from?"

He held up a hand to stop me. "I'm sure entirely sure yet. Not yet. I need more time. But one thing is perfectly clear."

"And that means?" I prompted, already knowing the answer.

"There's a murderer loose," Sherlock said slowly, with a beaming grin.

The crowd around us erupted into cries, and sobs and hysterical screams. A strangled gasp rose from the small crowd of shimmering people around us, louder than the rest. The manager, Monsieur Richard, stepped forward, his face screwed up into a vision of appall.

_"Non ! Non ! Mesdames et messieurs, calmez-vous, s'il vous plaît. Mon Dieu, quelle horrible tragédie - je craignais que les déductions de Monsieur Holmes ne conduisissent à cela. Mais hélas, c'est pour cette raison que nous lui avons demandé de mener une enquête privée. ?Aucun spectacle ne sera annulé/Aucun spectacle ne commencera en retard. Aucun emploi ne sera perdu. Je vous assure que tout le monde va être en parfaite sécurité à l'Opéra."_

Sherlock turned to me instantly as the manager spoke, his voice rather nonchalant. "He's telling the staff that we are going to catch this murder, and that the production is going on regardless."

I withheld my own gasp. "He's _serious_? Here, two members of their staff lie—er, hang—dead, and everything is going on like nothing happened?"

"Life goes on John," Sherlock answered to me. "People die."

"People die, yes, but isn't a murder is a bit of a call for alarm?"

"John, the man is in charge here, he has to do what he can. Think of the money that goes into running this place, the people who work here, and the families they feed. This Opera can't stop for a minute."

I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palm. Sherlock was right, perhaps. He stood, glancing around at the crowd before us.

"My colleague and I will continue to search the bodies, but still. Should I bother asking if anyone here has any idea where to begin the murderer's profile—"

A soft, throat clearing sound stopped Sherlock midflow. I looked towards the sound and found myself staring at an older woman, whose thin stature and soft wrinkle lines along her neck and cheeks harshly contrasted her eagle-like stare. Her light blue, sharp, intelligent eyes met mine and I felt the need to break my gaze like a chastised student who had been caught staring out of a window during a lesson. Her posture was impeccable, like she was used to being the picture of elegance and courteousness. I smiled briefly at the thought of a less-huggable Mrs. Hudson.

"I do, Monsieur. I have a note." Her voice was clear—there was no hesitation in her admission.

* * *

><p><em>My lovely editor, Miss <strong>Charm and Strange<strong>, has been so kind as to find me a wonderfully sweet French-speaking translator. That being said, if anyone that actually speaks French finds fault in my French wording, please do blame me for messing up Miss **Charm and Strange's** friend's hard work. Thank you._

FRENCH TRANSLATIONS (In order of appearance):

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><p><em>Est-ce que quelqu'un pourrait fermer les portes?<em>...Will someone close the door?

* * *

><p><em>Non ! Non ! Mesdames et messieurs, calmez-vous, s'il vous plaît. Mon Dieu, quelle horrible tragédie - je craignais que les déductions de Monsieur Holmes ne conduisissent à cela. Mais hélas, c'est pour cette raison que nous lui avons demandé de mener une enquête privée. Aucun spectacle ne sera annuléAucun spectacle ne commencera en retard. Aucun emploi ne sera perdu. Je vous assure que tout le monde va être en parfaite sécurité à l'Opéra_. ...

...No! No! Ladies and gentlemen, calm yourselves, please. My God, what a horrible tragedy - I was afraid that Mr Holmes' deductions would lead to this. But alas, that was why we requested a private investigation from him. No show will be ?late/cancelled. No jobs will be lost. I assure you, everyone will be in perfect security at the Opera.


	3. Note

**~*Note*~**

* * *

><p>Manager Richard seemed to choke on his own breath, gasping around a shrill scream, his hands flying to his hair. "<em>Non! Non!<em> Do _not_ let that woman talk! Those notes are absolutely—!"

"No, Monsieur Richard, please. Let the woman speak," Sherlock darkly intoned, his eyes flickering around the room, as if daring anyone else to challenge him. He held out a pale hand, palm up, towards the manager dramatically, as if his skin would absorb any more intrusive remarks from him.

The old woman stepped forward, her long, dark, squinted dress rippling against her ballet shoes. From her frail hands, she held a faintly crumpled letter. It was golden, laced with a red ribbon. The same ribbon I recognized from the girl's hands. She opened it carefully, and pulled out a single sheet of paper. She glanced at Sherlock once more as if still unsure she would be allowed to continued. The room lapsed into an intense quietness.

"He welcomes you both to his Opera House, and he also kindly suggests that you leave it, at once."

"_His _Opera house?" Sherlock intoned, rising his eyebrows curiously. By the door, the manager seemly tried to rip some of his own hair out with his fists.

"He says that he knows all about you, Monsieur Holmes. And he suggests that you and your medical companion keep your noses out of what business resides here."

"What—" I began.

"That this is an accident—and accident that will not occur again." She said over me.

"An, an _accident_?" The manager raged, spit flying from his mouth. "It's a bleeding _accident_ to string people up like marinate dolls?"

"But," the woman went on. "He says that, should his request for Monsieur Holmes and Watson's departing be ignored, more accidents just like this one will occur."

"I can't believe it John," Sherlock excitedly murmured so that I assume only I could hear. "A private murder _and_ a threat. By God, is it Christmas already and I just wasn't aware?"

He then raised his voice so that everyone could hear, his bright eyes looking around the room as if expecting the sender to be anxiously awaiting his masterful glance.

"And, who, pray tell, is this imposing fellow?"

There was a sudden silence. I reluctantly cleared my throat. The crowd shifted in their costumes, bells _ping_ing and tap shoes _tock_ing along the floor.

The old woman looked ruefully at us, as if she was sizing us up. When she spoke, the old instructor's voice was calm, clear, and full of conviction:

_"L'opéra fantôme, Monsieur."_

Beside me, all that palpable energy that once rushed through Sherlock Holmes vanished as quickly as it had come. After a heavy sigh, he sank down to his knees once more, to inspect the man's body this time.

"I'm—I'm sorry," I whispered to my flatmate beside me, the French words too fast to consider for the book in my bag. "What's wrong? Who is that?"

"I have no time for ghost stories, madam." His voice was offhanded, and sounded, if I had to take another guess for description, slightly disappointed. I took no offense to my question being ignored.

I glanced around the faces lining the room. It was obvious just how much of a 'story' these poor aristocrats really felt this ominous presence was. A young male voice spoke from the crowd, gently making his way out from the young dancers that stood with their pale backs frozen to the walls.

_"Madame Giry, la concierge de la maison, est un peu folle après toutes ces heures passées en présence du fou, Monsieur Holmes, veuillez l'excuser, de même que la réaction de la foule. On a eu une semaine épuisante et je m'excuse pour le comportement bizarre de la foule. C'est une drôle de tradition qu'on a ici, d'attribuer tous les accidents au fantôme de l'opéra."_

My brows furrowed. _'Le fantome de Opera.'_I at least recognized that from the speech once more. Was everyone talking about a… dead man?

"The…a ghost?" I asked, sounding a tad lost after the boy's small speech, to, what I assume was Sherlock. I figured that if it was paranormal by any means, Sherlock would be all the more intrigued. But, with that kind of pouting reaction…

"In English, Doctor Watson, he is known as the Phantom Of The Opera," That same young male voice informed me, with the regret of a polite apologetic smile. It belonged to a thin-coated teenager from the crowd. He was a tall lad, with dark auburn hair that seemed to cling nervously to his shallow face. He had dark blue eyes, which seemed to glisten with a wet tiredness- like some weird teenager that spent most of his time prowling through the damp chill of the Opera underground and wings.

"So, it's just a bogeyman? A specular killer?" I continued, speaking out awkwardly.

The grave faces nodded, the smaller ballerinas shivered, and even the outraged manager's fine furious hue about his face seemed to pale.

"Like a French Jack The Ripper?" I twitched back a smile as I didn't know if I was joking or not, but I never took my sense of humor to be normal anyway.

"Oh God John, _really_?" Sherlock's voice seemed appalled at me, exasperation deepening his voice. "No, this is nothing like Jack the Ripper, as even these imbeciles know that. Jack the Ripper was a real person." Sherlock glanced back up at me, and then towards the crowd.

"This ghost is fairy tale. John, I thought you more common sense than a twit."

I resisted the urge to knock Sherlock over from his squatting position with the heel of my shoe.

I think it had been less than forty-five minutes since our arrival here, but already I understood that this was a place of crowds. The people around us—I counted 15 in total—just seemed to saunter to the side of the wing, in some type of shock. I thought briefly about interviewing them, but, it was clear to even my eyes no one had seen the murder happen, and these people just wanted a show of reality. I didn't necessarily mind them—it was so fascinating to listen to the soft, echoing whispers of French sopranos and tenors the lay hidden within the human voices—but Sherlock wouldn't have any of it.

"_Aucun d'entre vous sont utiles ici, donc quitter. Immédiatement. J'ai été appelé ici comme un détective consulting pour mes capacités, et franchement, vous tous debout en l'espèce et la respiration êtes juste marinage toute preuve potentiels dans la salle. L'autorisation. Maintenant." _Once more, I was struck dumb by listening to Sherlock's perfect French accent deeply echo around the room, still full of that same annoyed, arrogant tone that I recognized in English. It worked though, and the crowd left. However, every single face met mine with a look that created the biggest pit in my stomach. That helpful lad locked eyes with me, his expression unreadable.

Something much bigger was going on here, behind our backs. My stomach turned to ice. I turned to Sherlock. I'd have to discuss this with him at some point. Something was wrong here. Creepily wrong.

"Sherlock, I don't know. Something's…funny, about this place," I began, not quite sure how to explain myself. "I mean, you're the bloody acute observer here! Look at the faces on these people! That old woman? Those ballet dancers—Even those managers are in a panic! Something wrong here, and it's bigger than murder. I..I don't know how, or why I'm feeling this… It's just…so…so…"

"So what, John?" Sherlock lazily drawled.

"Real." I finished. "Like they believe in this, this 'phantom', thing."

"Is this murder before us not real, John?"

"All I'm saying, Sherlock," I edged out slowly. "Is that these 'mad' people believe in that ghost story just as much as they believe this murder is real, and I think we should listen to them—that note—"

"John, as I informed that woman, I tire of these lies and stories. In the lobby, Monsieur Moncharmin informed me of some type of strange coincident and activity had been going on for a while now—but I never expected it to be a 'ghost'. It's evident that there's been a murder, and that being said, this murderer is on the loose, here in Paris—but I fail to ever slightly ponder the idea that this man is controlling the Opera, or that he's '_dead_'. Ghosts aren't real, John. Really. Use your brain."

"But, Sherlock—"

"They're just scared John. People do stupid things in general, but more so when they're scared. That's all that young man informed me of. That Madam Giry is over-worked as House manager, and that the rest of the Opera donors, cast and crew are feeling the same way, and that these ridiculously mal-developed threats and talk of ghosts aren't helping anything. They're just stupid, scared people." He paused, his pale eyes glancing over to mine, and I sighed into his accusing stare.

"What?"

"…You're not scared, are you John?" His pale eyes shimmered in beheld amusement.

I gritted my teeth, taking a deep secret breath before I spoke again. "No—'m not. I'm not _scared_. I'm just…looking 'round. Observing for once, eh? And I don't like what I see."

"Yes, but things aren't always as they seem." Sherlock slyly grinned to me. "And so, I'm going to ignore this man's threats for now. In fact, if his threat is real, then shall irk him somehow, perhaps he'll slip up."

"But," I managed, fighting between believing Sherlock's calm, accurate logic, and the feeling sitting in the pit of my stomach. "If his threats are real, then more people are just going to die."

"And if we were simply to leave John, people would die at his hand anyway." Sherlock defended. "All the more reason to _stay_, all the more reason to collect _evidence_ and all the more reason to _stop_ this potential serial killer. God, a _serial killer _John! This place is magical."

I sighed as Sherlock's voice turned from the smug tone of winning an agreement to glee. I moved around the room once more, turning over the wreaked furniture and atmosphere in my mind.

The room was hot, I assume from the thick, neat rows of sparkling red and black costumes that coated the walls and hung from just about everywhere. Mirrors were set about with stands and those classic lights that one would imagine from the back of a 1940's ladies powder room—except everything was smashed to fragile pieces. The mirrors especially. I stayed for a while, working over how the strange array of bruises that cascade down the girl's slender frame had come to be, when, finally, I just wanted to step outside. Although, considering that we were deep inside the Opera, I just wanted out of the room for a moment of relief from the radiating heat. When I informed Sherlock of my departure, he simply made a noise in the back of his throat that suggested approval. I went for the door, but not before pausing to notice that small, sleek dots of perspiration were slowly trickling down my flatmate's face. _When I get back in here_, I mused to myself, _I'll have to force Sherlock to leave here before he passes out or does something equally stupid._

I turned to Sherlock. "Considering the destruction of the room, don't you think it's the best option to listen to any potential evidence anyone here is willing to offer?"

Sherlock froze, the tendons tensing sickeningly in his spine through his white shirt. I realized now that I must have been completely unaware of him removing his jacket.

"It is clear that no one else is willing to talk, and I refuse to listen to the blasphemous ghost stories of an over-worked old woman."

"Fine," I countered masterfully, grateful to get away from Sherlock's overwhelming aura of brooding. I'd have to find someone willing to talk. My only dubious question now, was who... 

* * *

><p><em>Yes, I know, and I'm terribly sorry about how awkwardly this chapter cuts off. I am writing these chapters in 20-25 pages sessions, and so, some parts just don't piece well. I promise the next chapter is full of action…and is much, much longer. :3<em>

FRENCH TRANSLATIONS (In order of appearance):

* * *

><p><em>Madame Giry, la concierge de la maison, est un peu folle après toutes ces heures passées en présence du fou, Monsieur Holmes, veuillez l'excuser, de même que la réaction de la foule. On a eu une semaine épuisante et je m'excuse pour le comportement bizarre de la foule. C'est une drôle de tradition qu'on a ici, d'attribuer tous les accidents au fantôme de l'opéra…<em>

Madame Giry, the concierge of the house, is a bit crazy after all those hours in the presence of that madman, Mr Holmes, please excuse her, and also the reaction of the crowd. It's been an exhausting week, and I apologise for the queer behaviour of the crowd. It's a peculiar tradition we have here, to blame all accidents on the phantom of the opera.

_Aucun d'entre vous n'est utile ici, donc allez-vous-en. Immédiatement. J'ai été appelé ici en tant que détective consultant, du fait de mes capacités, et franchement, vous détruisez des preuves éventuelles en traînant ici dans la salle. L'autorisation. Maintenant…_

None of you are any use here, so leave. Immediately. I have been called here as a consulting detective, due to my skills, and frankly, with all of you standing around in the room you are destroying any potential evidence. I have full authorisation here, and to ask you to leave. So do so. Now.


	4. The Vicomte's Son

_Thank you to **Charm and Strange** once more!  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>~*The Vicomte's son*~<strong>

When I stepped outside of the door, the cool rush of the underground hallways instantly made me feel much better. I turned to look idly door each tunnel that led left and right. The lights held steadily, and, it was strangely quiet. I suppose it only surprised me so much because I always imagined every area of a theatre teeming with work. I stood for a moment, breathing in the cold and then went for the door handle to enter back inside. A sudden blast of ice air rushed up the collar of my shirt, the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up.

"_Gardez vos yeux cachés_…" A voice whispered to me, echoing off the walls, the floor. I steeled my legs. Its tone seemed strained, malicious.

I turned. "Who's there?" I kept my voice calm. Control, John. Control is imitating to a threat.

_ "Si vous restez ici, docteur, vous deviendrez aussi fou qu'eux deux…."_A soft voice—a different voice than the first one—said, and I quickly snapped my attention to the left hall, pinpointing its location. A tall figured stood in the way. The shadows the crawled along the walls edged by him, spiriting for the door as if invisible people were walking throughout the small corridors. His dark eyes narrowed for a moment during their passing, looking rather ominous. I tried to not appear startled.

"I'm sorry…_Non_…_Non_.." I floundered wearily for a minute, before entirely giving up translation. "I don't speak bloody French." _Damn that book._

"I am sorry,_ docteur_. Your friend speaks it almost perfectly. So, I just thought..." The figure gave a careless shrug as it walked towards me. The threatening volume had all but disappeared as it transition to a clear, accent-less voice. It was relieving to my ears to say the least. Even when these people spoke English I had trouble understanding. Then, I realized that he was the lad that had informed me of the Phantom in the first place.

"Almost perfectly?" I chuckled, relaxing as he came into plain view. "Don't tell him that, then."

"I wouldn't think of it," The boy smiled back, his dark blue eyes brightening for a moment in shared amusement. There was a slightly awkward pause in conversation, I searched for the means of inquiring about the precariously gruesome murder in the next room, but the lad beat me to it with an offhand question of his own.

"Considering your friend, if I may ask...he doesn't believe either, does he?"

"What? You—Oh you mean, with that ghost story, n' all that? Oh God. No. If it isn't logical, I'm pretty sure his entire brain shuts down until whoever's talking about it stops."

The teen chuckled softly for a moment, looking down at the sleek ancient tiles under us.

"Yes, well, I know your friend is right. It's pure delusion to believe in such rubbish. The workers here, they're sweet people, but, they're…_gullible_. With due respect to them, of course."

"Of course," I agreed. Gullible. I swallowed. I wouldn't know anything about that. "Look, I don't know if this is even right time for you, but may I possibly ask you some questions?"

The lad smiled that same sad smile. "If only, sir. But I have somewhere to be rather soon. I cannot."

"Oh," I breathed out. One dead end down, I guess. I went for the door's handle once more. "Right. Well. Nice to meet you, anyway. Thanks."

I slowly turned the knob, not all too excited to be locked in a stuffy room for three more hours with Sherlock, but I stopped, my ear catching on to a murmur from the lad. I slowly turned and leaned against the wall, nonchalant, as if I hadn't have heard him.

"—He _can't_be real," I caught the end of what the boy whispered, seemly to himself, and I nearly did a double take at what he said next—though, I'm positive that I just heard wrong. All those heavily accented French conversations messing with my head. "It would have fallen for one of my traps. She's crazy…"

"What was that?" I asked, breaking my cooling trace of bracing my back from against the cold, stone wall. A mischievous smile turned upon his lips but a look of alarm beamed out of his blue eyes, then, reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a very stylish and new-looking mobile.

"Oh, _merde_," he cursed. (Though, granted, I only knew the word from when Sherlock had used it to answer a text from Mycroft's assistant. 'Political business his fat arse—he's followed us to _France_, I don'tfucking believe it. Never mind, we'll just have to work doubly hard to avoid him at all costs.')

The boy glanced up at me, politely apologizing. "I must leave now, apparently, _docteur_. I am very sorry," He turned on his heel in a charming way, like he was used to dashing about the Opera—though, funnily enough, I never thought a gangly, uninteresting, scowling teenager such as himself would be backstage of an Opera house.

"Wait," The teenager stopped on his heel, turning partially to me, like he was strictly at war with himself on whatever he wanted to say. He looked slowly to me, his eyes appearing all the more dark, and strangely tired.

"Not to impose that you are a gullible man, but…you, you want to know more, don't you, _docteur_?"

"More?" I tensed. "Well, considering how we've done nothing to run on, I don't see how learning what we can from the people that work here would hurt. If you can recommend anyone that I could interview-"

"_Non_," The boy slowly shook his head. His shoulder length hair tossing disorderly, siding down into his face. "Of the story. Of the Phantom. You have that look in your eyes, just like hers."

"Who?" I shifted on my bad leg, which, for some reason, had started sporadically paining me. It's not real—the pain, I mean. I know it's not. Just,_ ngh_, can't help it sometimes.

A loud beeping noise triggered at that moment from the lad's mobile, and he then cursed again.

"I've no time—but, Madam Giry, she can tell you."

"Madam Giry," I struggled over the French name. " Was she that woman from earlier? Right, okay. Where can I find her?"

The lad was already a good length down the shadowy hall before I noticed a gangly arm pointing in my opposite direction. "Down that hall," he instructed. "Take two lefts, and it's the first down on the right. Don't doubt yourself daft, you _can't_ miss it."

And, as secretly as he had come, the teen was gone.

What a strange kid. I popped off the wall, and began in the direction he had pointed. Sherlock could wait. I had no idea why Sherlock didn't find his woman and her notes fascinating.

I walked down the hall and took two lefts, and stopped at the door on my first right. It was a red door, looking splotchy and old, with chipping paint. I raised my knuckle to knock when I saw movement from the corner of my eye. My heart beat started to speed up, a light thud in my ears. I swallowed nervously.

The damp lights flickered above me, and I paused, twisting to look behind me. The drippings of the moist stone plopped to the floor. A chill ran up my back like I was being followed. I pressed my back to the wall behind me, standing my ground. Something thundered from high above the underground cambers—_a performance, _I told myself—and dirt came towering down from the dirty ceiling, sprinkling into my eyes. I blinked, and the second I re-opened my eyes, a strong hand shot around from behind me, hooking around my throat and clamping down over my mouth, pulling backwards.

I tried to cry out, fighting against my primitive urge of sheer panic while I sought for the palmed skin near my teeth, trying to bite, my legs under me, trying to kick back, but it was no use. I was pulled roughly into a dark room, and then quickly released. Tightening my fists, my heart bursting in my ears, my lungs on fire, I sped around fast towards my attacker. A bright flash illuminated the room.

_"Sherlock?"_I gasped, my mind going blank.

Sherlock's tall jacketed frame stood in front of me, a small made of beheld amusement on his lips. He then twitched them, and they disappeared into their usual form of seriousness. In his hand, his brightly lit up phone kept our view of each other.

"I needed your assistance. Realized you had gone when you didn't answer my questions about the bodies for the sixth time. Popped out to come find you and instead I found this room—curious thing though. Just look at it. It hasn't been used for some time. Thought you were in it at first because I had heard you. My mistake. Then I heard you again, outside, and alerted you to my presence."

I rubbed the back of my neck, then my jaw. _What._

"By rough-housing me into a dark room?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow confusedly. "Is that bad? I didn't want us to be seen. This room appears to have not been used for decades. This could be useful to us, and only us."

"Thank God no one did see us doing that!" I gawked at him. Jesus. People talk bad enough about us back in London. I calmed for a moment, realizing that this was the very room that lad had directed me to. Or had I gotten lost? This place was like a labyrinth, in a way. All the stones and halls looking the same.

The something struck me funny. "Heard me…how did you even get in here without going past me? I was right outside the crime scene door!"

Sherlock continued to stare at me, a strange glow in his eyes. I knew that look.

"What did you find?"

"A trapdoor." He smiled.

"A—a trapdoor? From where?"

"There's two doors in near the crime scene. One where the manager led us from and the other that connects to the other side of yet another underground hallway. I decided to see where the second door led, and, after some stone shifting, I found a doorway. It led to here. The tunnel was full of dirt and spiders though—no one's used it for probably centuries. Same with this room, as I had mentioned. Highly doubtful our killer knew about it. But _trapdoors _John! Just think about the possibilities!"

Sherlock glanced about the room again, full of excitement. "Well, anyways, much too dark in here for a use now. Let's go back to the crime scene."

And Sherlock Holmes, causal as ever, walked out of the room, expectant of me to follow. Sighing, I did.

"John," Sherlock began, once we were back at the crime scene. It had been only five minutes. Sherlock had already said my name nine other times, and I had yet to respond. But still, he persisted. Couldn't he tell I wasn't in the mood for chatting?

"John,"

Occasionally my eyes gazed tracing at the hanging girl, bile churning inside of my head. Harry. I should call her sometime. I mean, God, her drinking. What was I doing, just distancing myself from her? What if I could help her?

"John,"

I tossed my head. She wouldn't accept my help. Besides, calling her now from France, what good would that do now but start some stupid row?

"John—"

_"What?"_I said testily, breaking my train of thought. I was still miffed from his odd earlier attempt to get my attention. This place was creepy enough without Sherlock leaping out of random doors. Not that I'd ever let him know that. And that Madam Giry. Unless I'd managed to get ahold of one of the tizzing managers, or find that allusive boy again, how was I ever going to reach her?

"I know you're thinking about Harry."

I stiffened, blinking a couple of times. I didn't bother turning towards him. I didn't want to know how he even knew. Sherlock didn't even turn himself towards me as he spoke, still at the bodies.

"Do you _need_ something, Sherlock? I can't be much more help until I get my medical bag flown in."

"Yes, Mycroft is handling that, apparently." Sherlock tone turned to acid over only his brother's name, every other word coming out calm and normal. He sniffed disdainfully. I didn't say anything else for a while.

"I heard your voice while I was in that empty room, John. Were you talking to someone?"

Heard my voice? What? When I had been talking to that teenager, I'd to have been a least several hallways away from that empty room.

"Don't look so surprised. The sound in there simply resonates a quite a while down. But that's not important. Who were you talking to?"

"Are you sure it was _my_ voice?" I questioned.

Sherlock started stonily at me. "Yes John, your voice. I'd know your voice anywhere."

He said it in such a 'matter-of-fact-way' that I couldn't help but grin a bit. My flatmate was so eccentric.

"I…I don't know his name. But he informed me of the Phantom Of The Opera—"

"The what?"

"That ghost story here, Sherlock? That Madam Giry spoke about?"

"Oh. _That._" Sherlock said bitterly. "You were talking to Raoul Chagny."

"Yeah, nice kid. Seemed a bit odd, though. He looks really familiar with running 'round down here."

Sherlock made a scoffing noise, as if I had just pointed that the sky was blue, or that birds could fly.

"Well, of course. He's the son of the _Count._"

I stopped, my eyes fixing to Sherlock's boney shoulders as he continued to hunch over the bodies. "The—the what?"

"_Vicomte de Chagny_,"

"God," I felt a strange laugh struggled up my throat, out of my mouth. Vicomtes. Counts. Phantoms. All these old names…

"What?" Sherlock didn't even look at me with his question.

"Sorry," I snickered awkwardly, "Sorry. Just. This whole place. It's like something from a fairy tale. Something lost in time."

" 'Lost in time'. You need to stop watching that rubbish show '_Doctor Who'_. Too much telly time is rotting what very little of your brain that you use."

I thumbed at my nose, the last of my chuckles finally dissipating on the moisture that lay on the air from my breath.

"Weren't you the one that got me into watching the show in the first place?" I shot back.

Sherlock paused for a moment, his eyes debating the flickering endeavor that was looking at me, or focusing on memorizing more damage. "Yes…but I didn't get _addicted _to it."

"Ah, yes, well, your addiction to murder cases. Much more healthy."

"Regretting not being able to sit on the couch?"

"Shut up," I laughed, my bad mood before towards him gone. "Just…just shut up."

There was a brief pause, and I remembered my point of asking Sherlock who that young teen was.

"So, the Vic…V..donte…," I tried, barely remembering the French term.

"_Vicomte_. It's an old fashioned French term for a lesser class of very, very prominent wealthy family. The Chagny family are huge philanthropists to the arts. Particularly, this Opera. I'd say, six months, at the least, from what the boy's clothing tells me, that they've regularly visited here."

"And the Counts? They're not vampires?"

"John," Sherlock slowly said my name, his tongue clicking in his jaw. I realized that his pale eyes were upon me, a look of stone cold serious sobriety on his face. "That wasn't funny."

"Alright, fine, well, who are they? And by the way, yes, that was hilarious, thank you."

"The parents of young Raoul. Old French family here. They travel often. I'd suspect they're not usually around their children."

"Children?"

"Yes, John, children. Raoul has an elder brother, and two sisters."

"He does?"

"Yes. Regardless of his expensive, up to fashionable French date clothes—his mother's choices. No boy his age would ever have such a recent sense of style and be heterosexual, along with his frankly horrible taste in cologne—trying to find how to stand in his father's shoes, obviously, he steals it from him. The way his hair is maltreated is his obvious rebellion from his lifestyle that is being pressed onto him by his family. But his parents travel—so who is he rebelling consistently against? It could be other adult relatives, but adult relatives with that kind of power would set the boy straight; it's stapled in his character, he values his mother's opinions and admires his father—he's a little weak willed to authority, that's clear enough. So siblings."

"Sisters?"

"Sisters, of course, easy—but older, they don't live with him, but they live close enough to see him often. Married, I'd say, but irrelevant as that's a shot in the dark. They try to dress him up—play with him, really. Keep his hair straight and nice and tidy—but he hates it, so his hair is less of a priority. He spoiled—doted upon—it's not usually in the means of most brothers to be so giving, so, once more, sisters. Sisters that treat their kid brother like the son they _want _but still do not know how to raise. Although he is a teenager, his skin is clear—unusual. But, under the care of sisters, sisters who are also cultural obsessed with looking good— and, I noticed, that he is very careful and protective of women. Like those closed in around the murder scene."

"And you are sure he's the Count's son?"

"His clothing is new, and clean enough, but it's in the way he holds himself. He has perfect posture. Highly unusual for teenagers, let alone male teenagers. Most teenagers are not always in the persistent need to be proper and classic, so it is in his family. From when he spoke earlier, I found that he speaks in a very formal tone and a very clean French diction. Extremely grammatically correct. So, masterful schooling for rich, young boys that have nothing to with patrons, or art? Possibly. But now, we look more towards his fingers."

"His…his fingers?"

"The dirt under his nails has flecks of that same chipped Opera House boarding outside."

"So?" I raised an eyebrow. "He could be outside the Opera a lot. Maybe it's a popular hangout for teens."

"Think John. You said it yourself—he had an unusual run of the Opera lay out. Made it seem like he knew where he was going. But the dirt is dark, and moist. So, he must frequent the Opera, but, he must be inside, where the dirt would be surrounded with enough underground drafts to keep its consistency."

"Fan…fantastic." I breathed out. Only Sherlock would understand the importance of dirt on people. The literal kind, anyway. He practically had all the different types of dirt in London categorized in his mental computer. I didn't even know different types of top soil dirt even _existed _in cities.

Sherlock smiled quietly, but something still wasn't explained.

"And…the brother?"

Sherlock's smile suddenly disappeared. "Sometimes, John, one understands the shadow of an elder brother when one has to suffer one himself."

My own smile faltered as the conversation pricked again over the terms of Mycroft Holmes, a subject that I did most everything I could to avoid. Sherlock had a point—I didn't have a brother, so I don't know how much that could provoke in a young teenaged boy. Something dark, I'd imagine, given the tone of Sherlock's voice. I quickly throw out my subtle hand at a topic change.

"So, he's the bored child of the Counts De Chagny who, through family funding, has the whole Opera as a playground?"

Sherlock threw back his head, and laughed. " Child. Maybe to our age, John, but for this last part, I thought _you'd_of all people know what he's stalking around here for."

I swallowed. "I would?"

Sherlock smiled that snidely grin. "It's more _your_ area."

I blinked. "A girl? He's here for a girl?"

My flatmate slowly rose to a stand position, being discreet about the obvious muscle strain that must be spasming up his long legs after squatting up and down for over an hour and a half.

"He's male, heterosexual, and probably 17 or so. It's always a girl."

"Always?"

He sighed. "Does no one pay attention when I talk? I swear—yes, of course, a girl! I said it before, the lad's heterosexual and is prancing about an Opera house!"

"That seems a little—" I stopped, but continued in my mind. Narrow-minded?

"Underground, in the wings, behind the scenes?" Sherlock continued, as if he was practically handing me the answers.

"He could be an actor."

"No way the _Opera De Popular_ would hire him. He's a terrible actor, on stage, or off. I could tell by his knees."

"His _knees_?" I began.

"There's also the fact that he was holding a girl in his arms," Sherlock sighed out, "in the mist of the crowd."

"He was?"

"Keep up John," Sherlock tsked to me, practically rolling his eyes, and he took out his phone and began snapping all sorts of strangely angled pictures left and right of the crime.

"_Monsieur_!" A tight, frantic voice from the narrow and tall figure of Co-manager Richard popped his way through the door. He made his way towards us, interrupting the tight, vivid bubble of Sherlock's and my conversation. Once again, I was struck with the overwhelming smell of rich, eye watering cologne. Even in the muck along the floor of the room, his black classic shoes shined. "You can't—" He huffed as he finally reached us, clearly not used to physical exertion. "I'm afraid you cannot take pictures in here."

Sherlock continued taking oddly angled pictures with his mobile, his eyes tight and fascinated. I found myself unable to look away from his concentration. That is, until a harsh, wet, undissmisable sound of a throat being cleared finally snapped the detective to attention.

"I cannot take pictures of a crime scene that my colleague and I have been summoned down on short notice to investigate," Sherlock restated hostilely, not missing a beat. "When furthermore, we two are the only private detectives working this case?"

The manager looked nervously at me, our eyes locking as if to say_ damn, he's right_. Though, of course, I suppose being the co-head manager of such a prestigious operation such as the _Opera De Popular_ required mandatory rules. Rules that had been followed for hundreds of very clean, very strict years. Was this man truly so invested that even _murder_had its restrictions?

His eyes darkened, moist and forlorn at his own words. "I'm sorry, but we need this to be as controlled and private as possible. But please, do not get discouraged by this notion. I meant it when I said that I need _you_, and no one else, Monsieur Holmes."

His eyes flickered to mine once more, fleetingly before they broke my stare to meet the grim floor tiles. "Desperately."

The way he spoke the word 'desperately' reminded me vaguely of the time when Inspector Lestrade used that same phrase towards Sherlock, on our very first case together. It held all the contempt and exasperation of a usually in-sorts man that suddenly found himself with no other options.

"Well, if you need me so undoubtedly, I suggest that some rules be amended," Sherlock snapped.

"I'm sorry Monsieur Holmes, it is out of my hands."

He begrudgingly looked towards the naked bodies of his employees, eerily twirling in midair together. "It appears that everything is falling out of my hands…"

* * *

><p><em>Whew! This is a long one. Sherlock's deductions were fun! Thanks again to all for enjoying so far!<em>

FRENCH TRANSLATIONS (In order of appearance:)

_Gardez vos yeux cachés..._Keep your hand at the level of your eyes.

_Si vous restez ici, docteur, vous deviendrez aussi fou qu'eux deux_.….If you stay here, doctor, you'll become as crazy as the both of them.


	5. Night

**~*Night*~**

* * *

><p>Sherlock glared at the back of the man's head, before snapped a final picture. "Very well. I'll delete them later."<p>

"Now, Monsieur Holmes. You need to delete them now, and I need to watch you do so. No information may be recorded, or taken from this place. Unless it is in the most proper of enclosed locations, I request you and your partner do not discuss it."

I glanced up, confused. Was he _serious?_

"So," Sherlock began slowly, as if he was, for once in his cocky pride, unsure of himself. "You are suggesting the Doctor Watson and I return at night?"

"Any hour is perfectly fine, Monsieur Holmes, Doctor Watson. Please, think of your time in my Opera as your home. Just so long as no physical or recorded evidence of the inner workings or crime here leaves, you are borderless here. Within good means, of course."

Oh God, he _was_ serious. Which mean that I'd be coming back here at God knows what miserable hours of the night. _Goodbye, sleep._

"Perfect," _And food._Sherlock smiled subtly, placing his hands within the pockets of his coat for warmth for a moment as we all stood within the damp, cool bowls of the giant theater.

"The pictures, Monsieur Holmes?" Manager Richard reached out a smooth palm. Sherlock, much to my surprise, easily obliged—perhaps too tempted at the full run of a 400 year old historical crime scene than let his stubbornness ruin the _fun_ for him.

The black, sleek mobile was soon deposited into the proper hands. A soft tapping of thumbs was heard and a bitter-sweet expression scurried across the man's face. I guess Sherlock really just listened to authority. _Goodbye logic._

"Well, it appears that you indeed deleted them off of your phone. Thank you again. I'll return this back to your rather quickly before I break it. I'm afraid I'm just about as out-dated as the Opera herself. Even as many teenagers that we get here, we don't even have any of that cordless internet nonsense."

Sherlock raised a dark eyebrow. "No wi-fi?"

"_Non_, Monsieur Holmes."

"I see," Sherlock echoed, pocketing his phone.

The manager's shoddy mobile shot off again, and he turned from us. Besides him though, that seemed to be the end of our bombardment from the staff. I found it strange that we, two perfectly foreign strangers, were getting to romp about an gigantic and secretive Opera house, when all the other staff, who had probably worked here for twenty years plus, had to happily hang up their tags and leave.

_Happily_. I let my eyes fall to half mass. They get to _happily _leave. God, what time was it? We had spent most of the early morning on a plane—and now….well, now it _had _to be at least midnight. I couldn't be sure though. I had no watch, and I frankly didn't give a damn about my phone right now. I was curious for the time, but if the opportunity came about where I could stay in my ignorant bliss of not knowing how late it actually was, and how many hours of sleep I'd be missing out on, all by not moving my hand to check my phone, well, that was perfectly fine by me.

The Opera House was never of any use when it came to telling time. It was as if time didn't exist in this pace. That it had stopped or just didn't matter anymore. It look up an entire universe right here on its own, and, no matter what was going on around it, certainly had no more important a of relevance than what was going on within.

It was also….eerily creepy at night. The main lights and power had been shut down, so almost all the corridors, giant, crystal-hung gallas and halls were the epitome of darkness. Sweeping the upper floors of the Opera House, though however better lit, I didn't prefer. The high, beautiful crafted ceilings and upper railings now shone with a strange, melancholy gleam, as if the entire place was too sad to remain standing and was threatening to topple down. I also had a feeling as if there were wicked eyes upon me, like I was being watched no matter what door I entered or what I did. It made me nervous to look too terribly hard at a stature, or stare at a dimly lit picture for too long. I swear, it's got to be the lack of sleep, but I kept thinking that when I'd renter a room, something had changed. Something was different.

That something had moved. The worst part was that I _didn't_ know what was different. I wish I did. I really, really would rather know. What good is the reassurance of a gun when you don't even know what to fight? But then again, Sherlock and I were the only ones here in the Opera House at godforsaken o' clock. _Things can't move when no one else is around, John_, I told myself_. Be a goddamn solider and snap out of it._

My left hand suddenly didn't have its twitchy tremor to it.  
><em><br>_It's just my first night here, locked into an Opera House and I'm just tired. My mind's playing tricks on me. So I stuck to the undergrounds, mostly around Sherlock, and only venturing up the main floors when the compacted moisture and heat nearly made me nauseous with claustrophobia. When I next ventured down it was entirely pitch back, and, after meandering around shards of glass to grip the back of Sherlock's shirt collar, I convinced him that it was time to turn in for the night, considering it was much too dark to see.

As beautiful as walking the empty Paris streets was, the walk to the hotel passed like a blur of Sherlock checking his phone and myself pulling him out of the way of planted trees before his ignorant arse smashed into one. When we reached the inside of our small hotel room I began immediately changing for bed, the idea sounding better than waking up on Christmas morning. I was tugging off my shirt when suddenly my mobile went off at a maddening rate in my pocket. A massive flood of text messages banging at the small, electronic screen. My eyes narrowed.

"Sherlock," I practically growled his name. I opened the messages- 58 messages containing very explicit pictures from the Opera murder.

"Hm?" came the delayed response.

"You bloody sent all of these crime scene pictures to me?" I snapped in a rage, wide-eyed. "I could go to _jail_ for this, you idiot!"

"And if I hadn't of sent them to you John, we'd have absolutely no way of solving this case within a reasonable time period, and soon be without rent for the flat. I was just being practical. Without them, we'd also be quite lost in catching that murderer as well," Sherlock explained.

"That man certainly wasn't kidding when he spoke of himself being as out-dated as the Opera. He didn't even think once to check to see if I had simply sent them elsewhere."

I sat down on one the soft, heavily quilted hotel beds, rubbing my temples. Sherlock remained across the room, my mobile somehow appearing in his hand effortlessly, as he stared in fixation at the pictures.

"How?" I ask simply, my eyes glazing at him.

His pale fingers dashed over the keys, creating a soft rhythmic pace, before he finally slowed down to answer.

"How, what?"

"Sherlock," I tested, flopping down across the bed. "Please, just bloody be straightforward. Just this once. Just…for tonight, all right?"

A small huff escaped from his throat, and, thankfully, he focused.

"Before I said that Monsieur Richard is an out-dated man, correct?"

"Yes," I responded, sitting up. Sherlock rolled his eyes at me.

"Wrong. He mentioned that himself. And after wards, he told me that—"

"There's no wi-fi." I finished, the memory suddenly flowing clear. "Right, sorry. So?"

"Well, he's wrong."

"What?"

"There is a wi-fi connection running the length of the Opera house. But, is it password encoded currently for its strongest access, but it still runs a fairly decent public service."

"H-how could there be a modern connection running the length of a 400 year old palace of marble and molding wood? Is that even possible? They seem to have enough trouble with the electric lighting on the upper floors as it is." I returned, exasperated.

"Yes, and the connection appears to be centralized at the basement."

"The basement." I stated.

"Yes."

"You are referring to the basement cellars under the Opera."

"Of course."

"The Opera basement that has a _lake _practically flooding them?"

"There's an underground lake?"

"Did you not read the damned _book_?"

"It wasn't important."

"And now?"

He wavered for a second before answering me. "I suppose it is."

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. This whole case was going to be a misdemeanor of the elementary school knowledge Sherlock forbid himself to know. Like the Earth going 'round the Sun.

"And…how could no else possibly notice this until now?" I questioned.

"Not sure. Perhaps nobody informed him in case he'd try to shut it down. Teenagers fear things like that. Perhaps my phone just had an unusually strong signal towards it. Which brings me to your phone as you asked before."

"Alright."

"Your phone company and your mobile brand in general are actually very far behind in currently fast network servers. Not your fault, you're not too diligent when it comes to updating, doesn't bother you. I've slowly discovered this quirk however when I timed the length of the single drops between your phone and mine. Your calls always drop faster, and texts take longer to get through."

"And when have you ever taken my phone for that long of a time without me noticing?"

He grinned smugly at me, and I was grateful that I was too tired to punch him. He flashed my phone at me. "John, I took your phone five minutes ago, and you're just noticing it now?"

"No," I hesitated. "I noticed. I just…don't need it right now."

Sherlock continued to grin.

"Oh, shut up. Just tell me how your stealing of those pictures didn't blow up in my face."

"It's like I said before: your phone drops wireless connection strength easily and texts are much slower upon arrival and receiving. I sent them to you, knowing that your phone couldn't possibly pick up a strong enough connection to receive them through until we were at least within a hotel limit, outside of the Opera House, let alone your phone sensing the wi-fi from the basement."

"Brilliant." I muttered, falling face first back into the bed's pillows. I couldn't tell if I was being sarcastic or not.

"If it helps, John," Sherlock smiled smugly, reminding me of his brother. "I technically didn't break any rules. I did delete them off of my phone."

"Piss off, m' going to bed."

"Alright."

I hit the lights, the room instantly going black around us, and I sprawled across the bed, not even bothering to fight my own body weight for the sheets beneath me. I should have just kipped at the Opera. Snuck into the House and just found a fancy seat to nap in. I smiled that thought; my sleepy cleverness was perfectly genius.

The closing of my eyes felt like I was tugging down an iron curtain. I definitely wouldn't be opening those again. Minutes ticked by of just appreciating the joy of nothing.

But suddenly, it wasn't so neatly dark anymore. My brain fought for logic.

Yes, my eyes were closed. Yes, the lights were off. So…what the hell?

Sneaking its way through the much-too-thin sheet of my closed eye lid was a light. From across the room. From the twin bed. From a phone. Sherlock's bloody _phone_.

"Seriously?" I slowly sat up, twisting to look at my obnoxious flatmate. The darkness of the calm, quaintly decorated room soothing—if only Sherlock's bloody phone light wasn't sparking up the place like a festival.

"Oh, hello John. I didn't realize you'd woken up."

"I haven't gone to sleep yet, Sherlock."

A long silent stretch between us. I can't believe this.

"Do you just…not sleep? I mean, you go into your room and I have no idea _what _you do with yourself, but…"

"Boring."

I sighed. "Fine, I won't try to convince you to sleep." It wouldn't be the first time I had failed at doing so, though.

I threw a pillow over the top of my head, smushing down into the mattress.

"…Sherlock." I muttered sleepily, trying not to sound desperate—fighting just to remember the person's name that was keeping me from…doing…something—after an unknowable amount of minutes had leaked by.

"Yes?"

"Could I possibly go to sleep?..Um…," I blanked out at my train of thought briefly before I found it again. "… without the light?"

There was slightly pause. A sharp intake of breath—though, thinking about it now, I'm not sure why. Was I annoying him for once? Was that stupid of me to say?

Was he upset that he was keeping me awake?

Alright, now I know I'm beyond exhausted for thinking that.

Complete darkness flooded the room as the phone was set down. No other word was spoken between us, and, before I could get out the words to thank him for once, I had completely passed out.

* * *

><p><em>Thanks to everyone that's reading and reviewing! It means a lot. I am so sorry if the next week's update is a bit delayed. This is the official end of the very first chapter, (as I had to cut this into four parts) and the second chapter is already at 50 pages and I'm STILL not done. <strong>Charm and Strange<strong> is going to kill me when she sees it..._


	6. Day

**EN: **WHOA. So it's only been…._too long?_ I am SO sorry folks. I didn't give up. **70 pages, coming at you live, each day an update.**I was waiting for my lovely editor to take peek, and I sure hope she still will—but for now, here ya'all are. I am so sorry for typeos.

ENJOY. :D

* * *

><p><strong>~*Performance*~<strong>

I opened my eyes to find my phone vibrating against my cheek, urgent, and relentless in its silent protest to be known to my unconscious mind. I peeled it uncomfortably off, and managed to read out the blurred words of Sherlock. The screen was neatly loaded with multiple texts. I sighed as I rubbed eyes. The pale clock before me read out to be 10:45 am. So early and Sherlock's already bored enough to text bombard me.  
><em><br>Couldn't sleep. Back at the opera, but in a different room, upstairs. The bodies are being laid out for less awkward viewing. And I thought Scotland Yard was idiotic in their approaches. (6:03 am)_

SH

_Do they have Water Buffalo milk here?(6:05 am)_

SH

_If so, you should pick some up, the proper currency is in your bag. (6:34 am)_

SH

_I've let you sleep longer than usual. Tickets for the late night performance of Carlotta Giudecelli in'Hannibal' are on the table. I cringe at the idea of formal attire, but, it is necessary. The opportunity of such free showing of Opéra Garnier cannot be taken for granted. I am certain you know to dress appropriately. (7:36 am)_

SH

_It's been nearly seven hours since we've returned back to our hotel room, John. You're quite the slug in bed. Get up. Bring milk. (8:17 am)_

SH

_Don't forget it. (8:19 am)_

SH

I groaned into a stretch, trying to process all of his words in a matter of 60 seconds of squinting, head tiling reading. A performance? Tonight? Sherlock wanted to attend an opera? I suppose that wasn't too hard to believe—he did play the violin after all, and talked fondly about classical artists, more classical German artists I noticed, than Italian or French, but the world famous French Opera House was probably a once in a life time deal. And it'd keep him sitting down somewhere for more than an hour. I even dared to ponder the idea that he'd actually be _enjoying _himself as well. God.

Tonight was going to be a long night.  
><em><br>You're unbelievable. Don't touch the bodies until I'm there, Sherlock. This isn't Bart's. What the hell do you need Water Buffalo milk for? (10:47 am)_

JW

I didn't even know Water Buffaloes could mass produce milk. As I pulled on my jeans, I hashed about what I had just said, and better organized my thoughts with clear obviation into what I actually wanted to say to him.

_Can't believe I'm sleeping less than four feet away from you and I've yet to see you sleep. (10:50 am)_

JW

_Do you just not sleep ever? (10:51 am)_

JW

I'm not getting you any kind of milk until you prove you're not going to be dead on your feet till this is solved. Remember what happened last time during the Kovcas case and you didn't sleep? I don't think I've seen Sargent Donnvan laugh so hard in her entire life. And since no one else will be around, I'll be the one laughing. And as your doctor, I really don't want to be saying that. (10:52 am)

JW

There. It spared me the trip to some market where I'm sure I'd get laughed as for trying to purchase something as simple as _milk (_though, granted, it's probably obscenely rare and Buffalo…ized), and Sherlock might get more than 20 minutes of sleep while we're here.

But there still was the problem of breakfast.

Sighing, I swept up the tickets, money, and translation guide into my bag, flipping haphazardly through the pages for a phrase that would be half way manageable to learn in a two minute walk from upstairs to the hotel shop. Usually I wouldn't be so bothered to go about and pick up Sherlock's strange requests—they'd more than likely be in the same vicinity of my own shopping, but the whole foreign language barrier was getting the best of my nerves. Maybe I'll just not eat at all here. Sherlock did it. I'll ask him.

I fumbled across the phrases for eating and thumbed at a particular line.

_Est-ce que je peux acheter certains pain, veuillez ?..._May I buy some bread, please?

I slowly mouthed what I hoped was the correct pronunciation as I slipped the now-crinkling cover of the book back into my bag. I didn't care to notice it last night, but the hotel the Opera had set us up was really quite nice. The lobby was huge, with a vaulted, arching, long ceiling and sleek black tiles that consumed the morning shadows. Unique sculptures of modern art made out of crushed metals and bent glasses folded and created some of the tables, and dark emerald chairs were pulled out everywhere. The walls were an odd shade of white—like an off cream colour. I certainly wouldn't mind spending some time in here every morning or so. The wall spaces opened up into tall, wide, clear windows that welcomed in massive amounts of light. The complete opposite of the eerie Opera.

My stomach growled annoyingly at me, and I stood casually as I could outside of the hotel shop's door without seeming like I was contemplating robbing it. A little golden bell hung between the frame and the door. Once I opened it, there would be no hiding. Oh god, this was so stupid of me to be nervous. Really. What was the big deal? Just…go in there, pick up some bread, pay for it. Don't open your mouth at all. No one would ever know—

_Ding-ga-ling._ I stepped in, and was immediately overwhelmed by the sickeningly sweet smells of fresh baked goods. The shop was a small but a charmed sort of place—short rows of neatly stacked cans, cheeses, and wines. The soft echoing of a female voice cascading over the air with a vibe of 40's music kept a smooth undertone. I almost wished I knew what she was singing about.

I tried not to slouch my shoulders or shuffle my feet shyly as I made for the cashier's stand, money already in hand. I spent a minute longer than I usually would have picking through the amazingly fragile looking bits of pastries and toast. _Was this stuff really food, or art I just missed the sign for?_ I joked to myself. Suddenly a small pit in my stomach opened up. I knew it was just a joke, but now I couldn't help but feel all the more alienated. What if I_ was_ missing something? My mobile in my front pocket started going wild for the fourth time. Sherlock, no doubt. I chose a round looking sort of bagel, and kept my back towards the milk section, just to spite him.

"_Bonjour_?" A cheerful voice meet my ears. I jumped, narrowly banging my head on the glass. I met the soft, chillingly light brown eyes of a young brunette woman, whose cheeks suddenly went pink at my wide eyed stare. I swallowed, trying to play off my scare.

"_Bonjour,"_ I managed back huskily, the word sticking to the back of my tongue. Wow. Wow, she was. She was very, _very_ pretty. What the hell was someone like _her_doing working in a hotel shop?

_"Vous désirez, monsuier?" _She smiled, her lips sparkled a bit, and her hair was straight and pulled loosely behind her ears. She said this clearly and slowly though—oh God, she must think I'm just daft and not just from around here. Or both.

"Uh," I began masterfully. _Shit John. Say Something_. "_Bonjur. A_h…"

_Okay, easy now. Just repeat the French phrase_, I thought quickly._  
><em>  
><em>"…Que je peux en…. l-la leche,<em>"

No! That's _Spanish! _And did you just say "milk" in Spanish? Dammit Sherlock! Shit. Great. Fantastic. You look like a complete idiot.

"_Je suis désolée?"_She smiled politely, obviously not understanding. I pulled my lips into what I hoped to be a half smile, and I pointed carefully at the bagel, giving her a pleading look. She giggled a bit at me, and reached down towards it. I crouched down a bit to make sure she had gotten the right one (or, rather, maybe just to watch her). She stopped as her fingers curled around it—her nails were painted blue, an interestingly dark shade against the clean white paper in her fist. She bit her lip (slightly chapped, I noticed) as she glanced at me through the glass, and I jumped back up to a standing position almost immediately. Great, she probably thought that I was thinking she was doing something wrong.

She then turned, her long hair swirling with the motion of it, and she rang up the price. I paid quickly, being extra careful not to let my fingers touch her palm was I deposited the coin. She placed the bagel in a small bag, and scooted it over the counter towards me. I ran a hand nervously along the back of my neck. I couldn't leave this awkwardly_. Just tell her you can communicate in Latin through surgical prefics_, I thought sarcastically to myself—No, wait, isn't Latin a kind of dead language now?

"Er," I glanced at the bag in front of me, not daring to meet her eyes. I raised my hand, and placed it on my shirt. "John," I coughed.

_"Pardon?"_

All that time of useless thinking of food and you could have at least looked at the first page where the secondary school level of how to introduce yourself was, Watson!

I tried again, finally using my eyes as I laid them to hers. "John," I said again, a little louder. I then moved my hand from my shirt, and leaned across the counter a little. Her green apron had a name tag on it—_Aimée, _it read.

"Amy?" I butchered her name, I just knew seemed to understand my motions now, as she threw back her head and laughed loudly. She placed her small hand onto her name tag, "Aimé_e_," She corrected, giving a slight edge to the extra 'e' to the sound of an 'a'— now it sounded more like "Imay". Regardless, it was even prettier in French.

"Sorry," I grinned, kicking myself internally. I then held out my hand towards her.

"John," I said again.

She smiled softly, and placed her hand gently in mine. It was warm. We shook hands.

"_Jean_," She echoed, leaning towards me, her lips quirking adorably. Her eyes then motioned to the door, and I heard the bell chime. I quickly dropped her hand, grasping for the bag. The young couple that had just entered gave me a strange look like I had a mental problem.

"Right," I muttered to her, knowing she'd not understand. "Nice to meet you, I'm—I'm going to go find a hole to bury myself in. Morning!"

I left the shop with as much as my broken dignity that I could carry in a small, brown paper bag. I sighed as I walked the block over the Opera House. _Watson, you are an absolute waste of flirtation._

A block later, I found the heavy, wonderfully carved doors of the Opera House shut. Without glancing around for reason of House security, I gripped onto the worn golden handle and pulled roughly, the stone stairs under my feet seeming to shutter under their massive weight being dragged across them. I trotted inside, reaching into the brown bag and tearing off a bit of the bagel, biting into it violently like it was the entity of the Opera House. My mobile vibrated again.

_Took your time. (11:29 am)_

SH_  
><em>  
>I dropped my mobile into my jacket, lifting my head with my eye roll to stare at the hollow ceiling of the entrance hall. Sherlock must have heard the strain of the doors from below. Sound traveled ridiculously far here. When I looked ahead my eyes were filled with the sight of a vastly quiet hall. It was empty—a complete 360 from the cramp, frantic mood of yesterday morning. I could hear the pacing of my feet long the shinning floors, my lungs expanding in my chest. The faraway echoing of the doors opening and slamming closed reminded me that I wasn't entirely alone this morning. Though, odd, it had to be at last 11:30 or so back now. Where was everyone? Especially on a day that had an opening night performance later on?<p>

I made for that same door that would take me down to Sherlock and pulled it open. A chilling rush of damp air rushed past my jacket and I shivered into my step. I glanced down the corridor, catching the receding sparkle of a ballerina's shoes. There was a gentle pressure of mummers, and I felt better as I walked bristly to the newly improvised morgue.

"Morn'," I grumbled poking my head through the door-less frame and taking in the bent over sight of Sherlock's back.

"John, finally," Sherlock began almost as soon as I had stuck my foot through the frame. He motioned to the laid out bodies. "Look at this disaster! It was one thing to examine the bodies at a more approachable angle, but they've obviously tampered with the evidence! They didn't even listen—" Sherlock continued without pause, raking his fingers maddeningly through his hair.

"Why are they_ ignoring _the orders of a hired detective? Next they'll be cleaning up the bloody crime scene! It's as if they want to forget about the murders all together!" His voice rose from a calm tone to a livid shout—his arms wildly tossing about as if he wanted to claw apart the room.

I chuckled lightly at Sherlock's rage over lack of control, biting into my fresh bagel once more. They weren't kidding when cooks raved about the finer foods in Paris. This bread was mouth-wateringly devious. I couldn't even taste my own embarrassment anymore.

"Well, as stupid as it was for them to be moved, at least they're down for better inspection, but I wouldn't exactly call it tampering with the evidence—" I began over a mouthful of food.

"Aurgh!" Sherlock growled, his eyes blazing towards me. "John, the point isn't in their position or really even their wounds—I took pictures for that! But they're clean now! They're all _clean! _It was in how they were arranged! It's the room that mattered! He's a serial killer John, they're all about the spotlight!"

_Spotlight._My eyes widened. I swallowed difficulty. "Sherlock,"

He didn't make a response, but as I settled my eyes over the girl's ankle, a strange prickling feeling ran up my spine. Back in the crime scene, the room, when I had first seen them hanging…there was something I saw…something I thought…

"In that room before. The bodies, the way they were strung up. They casted this…this shadow on the wall."

"Go on?" Sherlock's voice was suddenly low. I had caught his attention but now I nearly floundered with what to say next without feeling stupid. Oh well. Here it goes.

"Like two dancers dancing, or something," I sighed, fighting to hold onto the fading image of the eerie silhouette. "I don't know."

Sherlock took this in, and he carefully walked, trailing a (thankfully gloved) hand up the girl's leg. I bit into my bagel again, wanting to at least finish my only meal of the day before getting tangled up this mess again.

"…Interesting observation John. I'll re-check the pictures later for affirmation," his eyes rested over the male now. "But as for the bodies now, it's true they're clean, but," He sighed, "I suppose that doesn't matter. The killer has yet to throw us off. My earlier hours of studying them here have proven that thus far. You can only clean wounds so much—and most are superficial anyway. The blood clots and bruises are what briefly mattered and those won't fade with a duster. He's clever though. He's very clever…"

"D'you think he's cleaned the bodies?" I raised my eyebrows.

"No, obviously he's hired someone. Someone within the Opera."

"What makes you say that?"

"The chalk powder in the girl's hair. It's still here. The rest of their bodies are clean but the girl's hair is still shimmering with it. So it'd had to be someone used to the powder. Someone's whose eyes are so used to trailing over it that they'd—_No," _he suddenly stopped."No, no. That's not it. That's not it at all," Sherlock muttered, nearly to himself. He pulled his eyes to mine.

"No, the killer—he's clever for this, yes. But the_ cleaner_, the person who did this. Ah, they're subtle. Discreet. Leaving the chalk dust. Dancers—dancers use it mostly, we'll start there. Whoever helped this killer _wants _to be found. They're still here." He used a long outstretched hand to take up a piece of the girl's hair, rubbing it carefully between his index and thumb before letting go.

"How—"

"The Opera is a very notorious in its fineries John. They use a very particular kind of chalk powder," Sherlock continued to me, holding his fingers to his eyes and then under his nose. " No one else in the world would have access to it. Competition for the best of everything is very high in the performance world. And the shadows you mentioned—the dancers! Of course! God, this whole case. It's just _fantastic! _And there's more!"

Sherlock's eyes shone brightly as he pulled out his mobile like a street magician preparing for an act.

I stopped chewing, taking in Sherlock's burst of excitement as he rushed towards me. Snatching up my arm, he forced me to follow his urgent pulling to his mobile. The wide, white screen had simply two words on it, and an underscore beneath which vaguely reminded me of my password log in screen on my laptop.

**MORT ROUGE:**

_"Mort Rogue?"_ I read off the screen. "What the devil does that mean?"

"I have no bloody idea how it relates," Sherlock said flatly, pressing his lips together and then sliding them into a smirk. "Yet another strange finding."

"Fantastic," I echoed sarcastically. "So not only are you completely clueless, but I'm completely lost, we can't get help from Interpol and the mad dramatics around here are seemingly working against us?"

Sherlock sighed; a strange breathless sound that almost sounded pleased. "I'm so glad I keep you around John. The more you repeat yourself about this case, the more interesting it becomes…"

"Prat," I smiled. He had a point. This case certainly wasn't straight forward by any means. "So I assume its French?"

"It means 'Red Death'."

"Red Death?" I furrowed my eyebrows. That sounded so familiar. "And…this screen on your phone. It's the hidden internet access here?"

"Yes," Sherlock responded cheerfully, "I hacked that easily, but this is the only access port that I'm forbidden against."

"Right," I recalled from the previous night in the hotel room. "So that bar underneath it. It's a passcode?"

"Yes," Sherlock's voice hushed down, and he used a long finger to punch in a random amount of lettering which turned the screen into asterisk stars. The passcode failed.

"Hm," Sherlock began. "Why would there be clandestine wireless internet in the basement of the Opera where not even the central managers know of it? It seems so obvious. But why? Why is it obvious?"

"Hired techies here, maybe. Maybe they keep a separate signal running because it's easier to work the old House lights and security without the managers getting into a fuss about it. Considering the managers opposition against it, I doubt they're paying for it."

"That would make sense for the first internet code. But this—this is the second one. And it's not public. There's a password. And "Red Death"? No. No techie would be that whimsical. This, this is a clue to something much more…"

He quickly tapped his mobile, removing the screen and deposited it back into his coat. He brushed past me for the empty hall. "John, this is very important. Go back to the crime scene, and make sure it stays unhampered with,"

"And where are you going?"

"The theater," Sherlock smiled. "It is the spotlight of this whole place after all—you've just reminded me of that. Join me when you're through." He then swiftly took the bagel from my hand, and, popping it into his mouth, turned on his heel and whisked off in a flurry of a dark streaming coat and curls.**  
><strong>

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><p><strong>EN: <strong>sorry for the awkward cuff offs, as usually, but I gotta stop these things at some point, or ya'all would be here all night! Thank you SO much for alerts, and the faovourites, and the reviews! I know, I know. I'm a horrible person. Please enjoy….and maybe let me know what you think?

Or throw lemons.

I like lemons.

(and yes, the girl is important. Or John's just being a ridiculous flirt. Idunno.)


	7. Close Call

**AN:** I AM SO SORRYY! Between work, senior exams, and graduation, I'm so over-whelmed. I am SO sorry. Please enjoy! And thank you SO much for the reviews! Yes, I know, typeos are everywhere, and I'm so very sorry if they're so distracting as they take away from the story. I've looked and looked, but my brain just doesn't allow me to see them sometimes, ;-;-;-;-; Thank you for hanging on with me. I was afraid I had lost everyone. So really, thank you!

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><p><strong>~*Close Call*~<strong>

I blinked slowly at Sherlock's departure, flickering my eyes about the now chilling room. Carefully I placed my bag down, opening up its cold zipper and pulling on some latex gloves. I then turned to re-inspect the bodies. Sherlock was right of course, they had been perfectly cleaned. There were no more sloshes of dirt and grime, no more flecks of blood. Chemical evidence all but completely removed, possible missed finger prints destroyed. Well, all but the girl's hair, anyway. I was suddenly very thankful that Sherlock had snuck those pictures after all. I admit that I trotted a bit faster to the crime room because of this. People working against us here? Christ. Did I really just say that myself? And I believed it. _Christ._

Luckily, the room was still as completely obliterated as it had been all those short hours ago. The ribbons still swirled and gently swept along the glass laded wooden floor. I took a deep breath as I stepped as best as I could over large and twisted pieces of glass and metal frames from the destroyed mirrors; the air still tasted of dust and heat. The red ribbons had been cut carefully, while the golden ribbons were simply untied. The floor was so scuffed up now that I really couldn't make out any type of guess to how many people might have moved the bodies.

Regardless though, nothing else seemed a miss in a room full of stale air and broken bits. I decided that I'd try and stop the problem of interference by asking Madam Giry for the key—I had wanted to seek her out anyway. This was a dancer's wing—she had to have a key of some sort. I knew these poor people were scared, but, Sherlock was right. It's a shame these people had enough courage to touch a crime evidence in the first place. To hold the gored bodies of their friends and carry them elsewise. To disregard professional help like it was pointless. That must be the _worst _kind of fear there is, to think _all _help is worthless…

God, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it though. They're scared of a murderer—of a man? Of the super natural? Which was it? What were we _supposed_to be looking for? I halfheartedly tapped the top of my shoe against a shard of glass, and I watched it slide to the opposite end of the room. I went to turn to leave when its sparkle caught my eye. I stood where I was for a moment, chewing on the side of my cheek. Everything on that side of the room was destroyed as well, but it didn't hold any body, or blood, or seemingly useful evidence. Ah well. I made for the shard.

Focusing in on the view, I noticed that the mirror piece wasn't the only thing gleaming along the floor. It was rising up the wall as well. There was a second hole filled with a sparkling light. Then a third, a fourth. I saw that these were shimmering slivers of silver that peaked out from a roughly sewn together roll of red and black cloth. _Interesting…_

It took a lot of my upper strength to move that stupid tapestry—must be for some lavish production here—and it even fell to the floor with a noticeable thud. My heart leapt to my throat and I let out a startled gasp as a face suddenly met my eyes, but I took a deep breath when I realized what the cloth had been covering.

A full length mirror—completely intact and looking like it had recently been polished with the way it caught all sorts of light. The mirror waved a bluish hue at the bottom, which gradually changed into a light red at the top. I couldn't even begin to guess how that was done—what was a funny fun-house mirror doing hiding in a place like this?

I placed my hands along the sides, pulling at it a bit, trying to see if it'd change my reflection, but I stayed as normal as ever. Some kind of prop, then? The mirror had black painted sides, and bits of yellow stones cut into the corners. It really looked bizarre from every angle— I wondered briefly if maybe there was a point to this being the only surviving mirror—but the weight of the cloth along my shoes and the size of the thing just gave me a feeling of a missed opportunity of destruction for the killer.

I reached down to pull the heavy red cloth back over it when something in the background of my reflection started to wave in the still light. I kept myself still, my eyes slowly tracing over the bits of cloth. _No._ _No way._ The cloth…the angles that it was being tied. It was…it was forming _letters._ Long, curling abstract letters that folded and swayed along the center of the room right where the bodies had been tied. I turned around, disoriented. They seemed to be tied backwards, although the spelling seemed foreign to me either way. _French_—I swung around to face the mirror again. It must be French.

My eyes never leaving the mirror, (though my mind protested that I was just seeing things—really, really weird things, anyway) I reached into my jacket, pulling out my mobile and lined up the camera square for a decent shot. I didn't even want to bother writing down French letters backwards—Sherlock would kill me if I got even one letter wrong. I put my eye to the slot.

Suddenly a huge carcoffany of harsh, shattering glass exploded into my eardrums, physically knocking me back hard into the wooden floor, my phone clutched roughly in my palm as I had just managed to bring up an arm to cover my eyes. I brought my left foot down, kicking away hard and sliding as far as I could from the clash as I could manage, my heart going wild in my chest. _Holy Hell!_ I nearly smiled at the thought of it happening again, staring into the darkness of the cloth of my jacket.

I pulled down my arm slowly, taking in the gaping, sharp looking huge hole that was now the center of the mirror. I glanced above me and to the sides—there was no sight of projectile or object that had been thrown from inside the mirror to have casted that kind of damage. I was almost a tad disappointed that there was nothing to inspect or toss back.

I rolled to my feet, not bothering to check for nicks on my jeans or neck as I crawled to the mirror. I kept low, and quiet, and raised my arm up in front of me, before slowly easing up and glancing into the backless behind the mirror…

_Fffffshht! _A small, skittering something suddenly leapt at me from the gloom.

_Shit! _I stumbled back, throwing my arms out protectively behind me and colliding onto the rubbish beneath me. I nearly didn't have time to take in whatever the hell that thing was it was, it was coming at me so fast. I kicked away from it, twisting on my palms and then jumping to my feet, making way for the door and slamming it closed. The sound seemed to startle the creature, as it stopped midway…just staring at me. There was it though—this thing wasn't going anywhere. And when I saw it had a sharp, intricately carved poisonous looking stinger, I realized that neither was I.

Breathing hard, I moved for my bag, twisting through it only to find nothing but my gun, Gladstone bag of medical supplies—nothing to stop _venom_, though—and that fucking translations book. It was just a bug though; I tried to reason with myself. There's no need for a gun. It was just a scorpion-

Then, as if just to break all my thoughts of logic, the scorpion made a sound unlike anything I had ever heard. It was low, and harsh—metallic. My eyes widened. _What the fuck?_

I didn't have time to think much more than that however. It was coming at me again.

Its eight gleaming and sparklingly legs furiously scrabbled towards me with a shuddering sound of nails clawing at thick wood. Its eyes were two perfect little rubies that swirled and zeroed in on me, godly metal pinchers that seemed to be spray-painted with a dark maroon colour. No, this thing definitely wasn't normal. Or animal. Its body seemed to hiss and spark with bits of light and tightly coiled wires—a flash of green, hint of pink—and it's tail- dear God, its tail—was as beautiful as it was deadly looking. It was narrow, cut into perfectly cyclical packets of glowing red liquid within each segment. It seemed so vicious with its intent to kill me that venom was already dripping from its tip.

And I watched, almost like I had fallen into my favourite science -fiction novel ( novels that Sherlock always scoffed at and reminded me that the inventions inside were so _illogical_), as that red liquid started to _melt _the old wooden floor, steam cracking and wisping into the stifling room.

I side stepped to the right of it, but it moved with the accuracy of machine—lethal and unflinching. I grasped up my shoe, throwing it at the creature but it seemed to not do any good. I dodged to the left now—but its claws moved with me, grasping up into my laces, its pointy tail narrowly missing my calf. I panicked, landing hard along the floor and frantically pulled through my bag again, bringing out the book and I began pounding at the creature—using the spine to keep its tail at bay.

I brought up my right leg, sweeping the surprising sturdy metal body away from me, and then used the bulk of the book and the weight of my body to finally crush the monster into its place. It was stupid of me now that I think about it, but I used my free hand to grip at its tail and hold its stringer straight up and away from me, feeling like I was arm wrestling a bloke back in Afghanistan and not some bulky bug.

Finally the blasted thing stopped moving, and I dropped to my knees, dragging myself away from it before bothering to suck in any air. I gripped up for my mobile, dialing Sherlock's number without giving any second thought.

It only took half a ring before he answered.  
><em><br>"Sherlock Holmes,"_

"Sherlock," I gasped, "You've—you've gotta come back to the crime scene. Now"

_"John?" _His tone was strange now, surprised and confused.

"Now," I repeated before hanging up on him.

_~*~ *~*~_

"And you said it came from the mirror?" Sherlock ducked back through in a third time, against my near yelling tone to _stay the hell away from it._

"Yes, Sherlock," I repeated for what seemed like the hundredth time since he had stormed into the room in a fury of adrenaline and black hair. I was sweating bullets now, even with my jacket off and socks tossed into my bag, but my heart still skipped its fluid beats as my eyes never left the slain scorpion…robot…_thing_.

"Damn, it's too dark to see how far this passage leads."

"It's a passage?"

"Of course! Didn't you look?"

"Sorry, I was too busy trying not to _die."_

"I'll have to get a torch for this—" He began excitedly.

"You're not going down there without me," I added threateningly.

"Yes, yes," Sherlock begrudged to me offhandedly. "So the room remains unscathed?"

"You mean any less scathed than it was before? Yeah, no one's touched it beyond moving the bodies. I'm going to get a key from Madam Giry to lock it up."

"Hm," was all that Sherlock responded with. He then turned from the mirror and glanced back towards me before finally walking towards the bug.

"John, what were you doing back by that mirror?"

I slowly lifted my eyes from the bug—nerves twitching at the thought that it could pop back up and attack me at any second—and I met Sherlock's calculating stare.

"How—" I stopped. Then I remembered. "Oh, God. Right." I got to my feet, walking carefully back to the mirror and standing in front of it before turning around. "It's backwards, but it's there."

Sherlock mimicked my position, eyes still on my face. "What's there?"

"Words," I grinned, glancing back at him. "Backwards, and in French. You'll need a mirror to see them. If only they were upside down, I could at least read off the letters to you."

"John, that's…." His voice trailed off. I beamed a little beside him. I slowly rose up my phone, managing to show the actually decent picture of the words in the mirror before it had blasted open.

"_Malach HaMavet_," Sherlock slowly said to me.

"What?" I frowned. "That doesn't sound French at all…"

"It's not. It's Hebrew."

My eyes widened. "Hebrew? Seriously?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at my phone as he quickly took it from me, typed in the words into my phone's browser. He smiled a wicked smile, before handing my mobile back to me. On the screen it read:

_**Malach HaMavet**__: Hebrew for: The Angel Of Death, or the Angel of Dark and Light. An Angel cast down from heaven to take the souls of the sinful and the innocent to Hell or the gates of Heaven. Never to enter either one itself._

"Huh. Hebrew." I repeated. "Fat lot o'good that French book."

"Besides using it save your life. Good thing I brought you the book, eh?" Sherlock grinned spitefully at me as we walked back to the crushed machine.

"Piss off," I glared, grasping up the book and nearly dropping it again as I realized how intact it still was, like it was mocking me. "We're trading places then—I'm burning up in here. I'm going to the theater. Did you ever find anything?"

"No yet," Sherlock murmured to me, sliding down to his knees and tilting his head to the side as he stared in awe at the twitching and still flickering mini-monster machine before us.

I stretched, calming down now that that _thing_ was dead…or incapacitated or…_something_. "Well, I'm gonna go up and get some fresher air, and then I'll come back down and help you with whatever the hell thing is, all right? You're probably better at the chemicals and mechanics inside of it than I'd ever be anyhow."

"Leave your bag, John," Sherlock agreed to me. "We might need it to move this machine."

"Oh, you wish," I said, grasping up my bag. "I'll bring you down some other container, all right? No way are you using this bag. It's _leather _for God sake—did you seethe way its oil, venom," I struggled for the proper word. "_stuff _cracks the floor? — No."

I took another look at those still moving gyros inside of the scorpion's head, and held back a shiver. _God _this place wanted the best of me. I had to get away from this room for a while. I stepped out without hearing Sherlock's response, and made for the upstairs theater.

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><p><strong>EN:<strong> Yes, another short, akwardly cut off chapter. Sorry, sorry, i am sorry! ;=; Thanks again all!


	8. The New Prima Donna

_**The New Prima Donna**_

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><p>I stepped back out into the lobby, and breathed a sigh of relief, leaning my back against a wall, careful to not press against the lit up painting resting there. I rubbed my eyes, blinking them over and over, feeling the motion flicker against the palms of my hands like a heart going into rapid palpations. Jesus.<em> Jesus<em>—was I just attacked by a robot creature? This was absolutely mad! I'd have to find the managers—they have to know more. I could have been killed, and they're forbidding us police help? God, what if there's more? Sherlock said it came from behind the mirror…in a passage? A damn _passage?_ To where? What if someone's, someone's _building_them, somewhere deep and hidden in the Opera. What if next time its set loose, Sherlock and I won't be there to protect its next victim?

I breathed in. I was lucky this time. Very, very lucky. Lucky it was me. Obviously these dancers and workers seem incompetent in helping themselves, I'm glad it was me that was in danger. With these robots running around there's no doubt in my mind that something freaky is going on _now_. I squeezed my eyes shut, crushing my hands to my face. God, I was about to admit something that no one's going to believe me to.  
><em><br>The murderer is somewhere hidden in the Opera and is building killer robot scorpions._

No wonder Sherlock took this case.

I nearly chuckled to myself, sighing as my internal monologue sped into silence. In that silence, however, I somehow very clearly heard the delicate strokes of a piano being played, and a thin voice reeded above those soft notes.

_"Think of me…"_

_There's no doubt_, I continued in my mind, fighting to keep a strict train of thought as my ears focused more and more on the slowly growing voice, that now seemed remarkably loud, and seemed to be thundering through the House walls. I slowly raised my head and looked towards the closed bulked doors that led into the main House and, thusly, the performance stage.

"_Think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye…"_

There's no—no doubt, I was faulting in my thoughts. Sherlock and I would have to go down there. Down there? Down…down—Is…is that voice singing in _English?_

_"Remember me…once in a while…please promise me, you'll try…"_

Realizing, of course, that I was eerily alone once more in the lobby, I pulled open the House doors, and stuck my head inside. Far—far, far away from me, and in the center back of the wall dawning the House was the magnificent Opera Stage. I caught my breath in my jaw, and slid into the room, closing it behind me as softly as possible. The singing voice was gone.

I kept quiet and low as I raked my eyes over the hundreds, and hundreds of rows of ludicrous looking-seating that seemed to blur together within my limited darkened vision into a soft, velvet blanket that covered the massive two level complexes. The stage was harshly lit with a couple of double wide white lights that almost made it seem like all the actors standing upon it were floating on solid cloud. The ceiling above me was completely blacked out. I could barely make up anything about it—but I figured it would be tediously mortified over with flying infants and other strange wealthy orientated images. The lights from the stages sparkled gently over the upper golden railings that held back the upper seats of the amphitheater that hung out and over the ground seating. Man, this place must seat _thousands._

I made it as far as the fourth row of the very first section closest to the stage when a loud, booming voice suddenly blasted into the audience and I threw myself frantically into the closest seat."Everyone! Everyone! Tonight's performance is special, as we are holding an entirely full house to a crowd of strictly English speakers for one night only, so, for practice everyone, we shall be speaking in English for the rest of the night until the final certain falls, is that clear?"

I ducked my shoulders, but I raised my eyes to the stage and made out the tall, thin figure of co-manager Richard was the one that had spoken. As much as I was enjoying the culture here, words cannot describe how nice it was to hear English. And the performance tonight? Entirely in English? Maybe I can actually stand dressing up now.

It was risky of me, but I was glad to find the English fluent manager. He'd have to be told what had happened to me at once. I slowly stood up, and waved my hand a little before calling from the House.

"Er,Monsieur Richard? May I speak to you for a minute, sir? It's very important."

"Huh?" Richard quickly twisted his neck in my direction, a look of complete bewilderment on his face. "Doctor Watson? Do you realize that this is a closed final rehearsal?"  
><em>Did he realize that there was a murder down stairs? <em>I scowled.

"Um, sorry," I cough out awkwardly, disheveled by the lackluster alarm at my appearance and request to speak, and tried again. "Really. I'm sorry, sir, I wasn't aware but—"

"There's a bloody sign outside the door, man! You were apparently in here, you of course now know, we have a full House tonight! _Full _House!"

"Well, I can't read French—"

"It's in _English_! Really, you're not nearly as observant as your friend. Shouldn't you be with him, by the way?" The manager then turned on his heel a second time, facing back towards the actors. I gritted my teeth.

"Sir! Really! I—" My eyes caught the polite, nervous stares of the twenty or so young ballet girls, techies, main actors, and, soon, the House Orchestra had turned from their intricate instruments and were all facing me. Oh God. There's no way in Hell I'm going to yell out that I was attacked from behind a mirror by a robotic scorpion. No way. There'd be pure panic with this lot. But how to—

"_Doctor!_As you can see we're very busy," Richard spat frustratingly, his face taking on that hot-headed red hue as he spoke to me. "So to possibly speed things up, I'll allow you to take private spectator here, if you will stop interrupting!"

"I understand, but sir—"

"DOCTOR, WE SHALL DISCUSS MATTERS AFTERWARD—"

I kept my mouth closed after that, and leaned back in my seat, nervously twitching my heels when I thought I had felt something skittering through the darkness under my seat. I really hope this rehearsal would be over soon. _Now _I was starting to understand Sherlock's frantic frustration.

"Shall we begin again, everyone?" the manager called, and he raised his arms high above him, and the glossy blood red velvet curtain swayed up and into the air like he demanded it.  
><em><br>_The well-dressed Orchestra sat high in their chairs, and a curious looking platform began to move the entire band down into the stage floor, breaking into a nicely shaped reticular cut out of a pit. As the old floor board creaked and moaned with the strain of machinery ingenuity, I noticed the myriad flaps of many obviously older hand-opened trapdoors from earlier periods.

The stage opened into a colourfully brilliant array of dancers, set pieces, and, perhaps most forgettable of all, an extremely over-dressed woman with tarsals of long, raven hair. She took down stage masterfully, and when the string instruments rosined themselves, I suddenly felt the urge to clench the arms of my chair and brace myself.

_"Think of me," _Her voice gaffed out, low, and heady with swopping drives between on-key and painfully deep. It was nothing like the pleasant voice I had heard singing before. I re-evaluated where I was standing outside the House doors. …Was it all in my head, what I had heard before?

_"Think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye…remember me, once in a while, please promise me you'll try…"_

Oh, please tell me that this isn't what Sherlock and I were supposed to be listening to all night long. It wasn't that her voice was…bad. But it certainly wasn't pleasing. I'm sure the description does wonders for those of you reading. I glanced to the sides to try and preoccupy myself, and noticed the graceful movement of backstage hands and the rhythmic testing of different shades of lighting that flowed across the stage. It was really quite something to see.

From above, I looked up, and took a interested view of the brave men and woman that were flawlessly scamper across thin sheets of metal and traversing rope to get the certain and who-knows what other aerial props on cue. I must have stayed looking up at the upper levels for a while, because when the lights suddenly blinked back on a second later, I felt like I had been horribly blinded. Somewhere between the bright sparklers that made up my vision, I heard the groan of something heavy being pushed from high above—the lights blinked a second time, this time plugging everything into complete darkness. My eyes felt thankful, but the atmosphere around me entrutped into acute hysterical. From the left of the stage, my ears heard someone cursing loudly, and twisting around to take in as much as I could of the ceiling, the lights only returned when a large stand bag was seen plummeting to smash into down stage. Right where the lead actress was preforming—I gasped, too far away to do much of anything but gasp like a sod—but thankfully, someone managed to grasp the woman's hand and pull her hard to the front again, saving her from what I'm sure would have been a nasty concussion. Sadly however, the life-saving push seemed to be a bit too hard. The woman plummeted entirely off stage, and into the first row of seats.

The crowd was leaping off stage in seconds to reach her, co-manager Richard bounding to the edge and looking down horrified.

"Señora! señora, oh dear God in Heaven, are you alright?"

"Am I alight?" Her voice seemed to take on a tone that could only be described loathing upset. She pulled herself upright, lynching her arms and legs away from any helpful by-stander. Her shoulders shook with rage. From above, I noticed the manager looked a little scared of this woman.

"AM I ALRIGHT?" She screamed again boisterously, her diction suddenly failing from high, muttered, strained English to a furious hint of something equal foreign. "FOR THE PAST THREE MONTHS THAT IS THE _FIFTH _TIME I'VE BEEN PUT IN DANGER!"

"I know, I know," Manager Richard threw up his empty hands in defeat, "But, look, Carllotta, my darling, you've yet to be hurt!"

This apparently was not a decent enough excuse for the actress. She pushed through the crowd, and marched up the steps to practically spit in the conductor's face.  
><em><br>"Eso es todo! Me voy! Una lástima para todos ustedes! Y usted! Y usted! Y usted!" _the Prima Donna screamed in a sudden, heavily accented Spanish, her mouth opening so wide and breathing in so little air in that I swear she could have probably filled a hot air balloon all by herself. Her long, shimmering black hair twisted and matted itself against her luminous gown with every angry movement, and I noticed that many of the other actors seemed to take a measured step backwards, eyes pointed towards the ceiling in boredom. I didn't need Sherlock's social reading skills to understand that Mrs. Carllotta truly was a Prima Donna. She struck out a long, muscular arm at the two managers, her eyes nearly on fire; sparkling pink finger nails filed down to dagger points.

_"Ustedes dos son desastres! Sayers Nay y mugre estar aquí en las Artes! Escupir sus nombres, su riqueza que usted tome de mí para ponerse en los zapatos de calle! Casa caerá sin mí! CAÍDA! Armando, sacar mis cosas! Somos LEAVING!"_

I caught that last word at least. With a snarl and a snap of her ringed fingers, the stage was cleared of her, and I swear that without even knowing her, I breathed a sigh of relief with the rest of the staff.

"Señora! Señora! No! Please wait!" I listened wreak calls of a stunned manager Richard as he disappeared after her.

Madam Giry rolled her crystal ball eyes, stamping a thin, smooth black cane onto the wooden stage and jolting the lounge ballet girls back into stance. I watched her glare in particular touch upon a young, tall girl with brunette hair and blue eyes just like the Madam. Her daughter? The brunette girl blushed and giggled, quickly clasping onto the arm of another ballet dancer with a contrastingly stoic expression as well as hair colour. Her friend seemed to be completely frozen in time, her eyes straight ahead, nearly white blonde hair ramrod straight down her back, obediently on Madam Giry. I had to rise myself up a tad to see this sliver of a girl. She was so thin that I immediately knew it wasn't her natural weight. While the brunette giggle and whispered into her ear, her shorter friend had a dark, weighted expression, like she was baring a very, very silent torture. Almost like she wanted to scream. I felt shaken again as I received a flash of the dead girl's body in the make-shift morgue down stairs. To take a deduction, I'd say that this poor girl had probably known the victim well.

My eyes then snapped to the panting sound of Manager Richard as he twittered through the gloom.

"Andre!" He called, his long face tightened and more stressed than ever. "Andre! Carlotta refuses to show tonight! We shall have to refund a Full House, Andre! A FULL HOUSE!" His hands clenched to his hair, and I blinked to spare myself the image of him pulling it out once more.

Soft gasps echoed the fear reflected in Richard's face—the boy's began to pick up pieces of scenery, and a few ballet dancer's began to quietly sob_. Tap-tap-tap._

"Christine Daaé can sing it, _monsieurs_." All eyes beheld the intonement of Madam Giry as she called for attention with her cane.

"_Moi?"_ All heads turned towards the area of Madam Giry's daughter, but it was her friend that suddenly found more energy than all the ballet girls combined, and the colour of life filled her pale face, her eyes going round. It was that same sickly girl that I had noticed before. "A chorus girl?" Co-manager Richard's old conductor habits were kicking in, and his face tightened as he swung on his finely shined heel to stare daggers at his partner. "A chorus girl fill in for _Prima Donna_?

"Richard, calm down my friend. What harm shall it do?" I heard Manager Monchinarm murmur back to him in strained English for the first time since arriving. Richard threw his arms up in disbelief, "More like what choice do we have!" he growled back to Monchinarm, but the Madam's daughter pushed her friend forward from the crowd of girls.

"Go on, Christine!"

"_T-think…"_the girl stuttered almost instantly, the sound like a kicked puppy. Co-manager Machonarm smiled gently, and took the girl's arm, leading her further onto the stage.

"Do not be afraid my dear," He whispered. "Art is made to spread beyond human emotion. Just let go of yourself."

The young girl opened her mouth, and it was like someone was tapping the edge of a wine glass in perfect time to a distant piano. How else can I possibly go on to describe about this girl's voice? Brilliant? Fantastic? Incredible? Seraphic? Her voice met absolute perfection as it balanced superbly off of every wall, tile, wooden panel, painting. My eyes opened wide, my throat running dry. I couldn't believe my ears! This girl was beyond description! I swear, it was as if the whole Opera House approved of her as well—flickering lights suddenly snapped into proper function, the wooden boards warped into a stunned silence. The whole House seemed to be in awe of her. I noticed the tips of the hairs on the heads of the techies from the upper levels that had stopped and knelt down to gaze at her, their faces covered by the curtains. I was nowhere near to be judging a correct choice for an opera—but this girl's young, sweet voice seemed miles above the blusterous croon of La Carlotta's affair.

"_We never said our love was ever green, or as unchanging as the sea…"_

A bit of light filled the corner of my eye, and I turned to find who other than the child of Viscount entering silently from the back—his eyes on no one but Christine, a smile lighting up his dark features. Aho, I knew that look! I nearly laughed. I couldn't seriously be seeing a love story folding out in front of me.

"_But if you can spare a moment…spare a thought of me…"_

A sharp whooshing sound met my ears, and I turned back just in time to see the secondary certain raining down, narrowly missing Chrstine, and in shock, the piano stopped, but Chrstine's voice waver onto one note before cutting off into a cry. She took one panicked look into the House, and dasked off into the wing. It was clear the audition was over. The Opera House had chosen. There was a mad calling of mixed English and confused French muffled from behind the dark certain—I'm sure someone must have let a sand bag or pulley slip or something in the commotion with the lights. But still—all these main stage accident happening so rapidly?

Suddenly, I felt a rough pressure on my lower back, pressing through the cushion of the seat. I glanced behind me to find Sherlock. I raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't touch anything up there, did you?"Sherlock wasn't listening; his face was a mask, calculations and figures and charts were writing and re-writing themselves across his mind. His eyes were focused entirely on the upper levels of the Opera. I turned back, wondering if I would be alright to clamber back behind the certain and resume my chat with Manager Richard. But Sherlock had other plans.

"John," I could feel the heel of Sherlock's shoe pressing into the back of my seat, building the uncomfortable pressure to my back. Sighing, I shifted and turned towards him, just like he ever so _discreetly _wanted.

"I haven't even gone up there yet." He defended to my serious look.

"Think something tricky's going on around here now?" I grinned.

Sherlock matched my smile. "Perhaps. Perhaps there is faulty wiring. I am going up to investigate. It would be most helpful however, if you were go talk to Madam Giry right now."

"And that…bug thing?"

"It's been removed to a lock box near a separate room I have been given for protecting evidence with a key from the Managers. I'm having it shipped back to our hotel room tonight to that I may inspect it further, but it can wait. For now Madam Giry and my exploration of the upper scaffoldings are most helpful. Tomorrow we are seeking out that passage behind the mirror you discovered."

"Dark tunnels full of robotic killer scorpions. Sounds like fun," I laughed at my own words. Oh my God, this place was ridiculous.

"Dangerous fun," he agreed impishly. He then sighed, his brows coming together.

"John, I've realized now that turning a blind eye to these frightening people and their queerities obviously isn't getting us any closer to the killer. The bodies removed, cleaned. That fantastically dangerous scorpion machine. It's only a matter of time before they're sweeping up the crime scene itself if they're spooked again by a stranger mishap. John, I do not say this often, but I think I indeed may be partially wrong in my previous assumptions."

"Really?" I leaned on my elbow. "You? Wrong?"

Sherlock swiftly rose to his feet and paced the rows towards the stage. "Your dry wit is terribly amusing John," he quipped to me, scowling his lips but raising an eyebrow. " But I only said _partially._Go talk to the Madam. She is House coordinator, and, I'm certain with her many years here, she has to know something remotely useful about the technicalities. Ask about the hidden internet access. Ask about the mirrors. The keys. But…there is one thing. I may be wrong about the useful knowledge of the people here. But there is no Opera Ghost; do not get the Madam started on such nonsense. That, I am absolutely certain. I fail to believe in any type of superstition like ghosts or Batman."

I gawked, choking back a laugh for the sake of the practicing singers. "I'm sorry, you _don't_ know about the Earth revolving 'round the sun but you_ do _know about Batman?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes and pulled a vile face, still making for the backstage curtains. "Mycroft went through a phase when he was younger. Positively admired anything that had to do with billionaires and corporations. Don't even get me started on Tony Stark. That was even worse. It was awful. I still don't understand it."

I buried my face into the seat in front of me to stop from laughing too loud.

"John, focus." Sherlock snapped, and I turned my face a little to see him. "Find Madam Giry. Don't forget to obtain a key."


	9. Madame Giry

_I am so sorry once more. Please enjoy. Thank you SO very much for the reviews. c: _

**Madame Giry**

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><p>This time it took me no trouble in finding Madam Giry's dressing room. This place, as always, was like a continuous maze, marble, canaling, and impassive—but still I came across her room. It was weird, and I forced my eyes straight ahead as I stalked through the moist tunnels, but I could almost swear like this place was shifting- moving. Like it wanted me to find Madam Giry's room. <em>This<em> time. I resisted the urge to hold my right hand out and run it along the damp, dirty tiles along the wall as I walked.

I knocked lightly on the door, only to find it came open rather easily. I carefully ducked in, averting my eyes to the floor. It was a lady's dressing room, after all.

"Monsieur?" The voice of Madam Giry called in surprise. I tried not to appear like I had an idea about what I was doing.

"I'm terribly sorry for intruding, but may I have a moment of your time? Please."

"Are you with that terrible black-haired man?"

The question startled me. "N-no Ma'am," I stuttered.

I made my way inside. The ceiling was low, and tilted at an angle that made her appear as if she was a on an incline plane. Within the room there were boxes upon boxes of different wings and pieces of cloth. A long stretching trunk took up the back wall, glinting melancholy in the damp light that presided from a single light bulb, covered by a delicate looking paper lantern. The early woman was wearing her simple outfit from when I had previously seen her onstage; even her cane lay next to the chair she was seated in. But there was a sharp, resentful look in her eyes that stopped me from coming any further into the room."Madam, I wish to talk with you about the happenings going on her. My name is John Watson.""Please _Monsieur_, I have been humiliated enough. If your investigator will not listen, that I refuse to speak." The woman's voice was so different than when I had heard her onstage. I suppose that was a kind of façade she had to put on in front of her girls or she'd never maintain order. But hearing it now, coming from her narrow angles and slender, worn bone structure—I felt like I was handling something very few people were allowed to see; and I was going to be handling whatever this was, very badly. I tried to start with common ground. Sherlock, being well, Sherlock.

"I know, he's a bit of a prat—but please._ I'm_ here. _I'm _willing to listen. Please tell me more."

She averted her eyes and with that I allowed myself a few final steps forward instill we were within causal chatting distance.

"You have the eyes of that same girl that always bothers me for tales."

I froze, blinking. I certainly didn't expect that angle so quickly. A soft flutter of a flash-back murmured in my ear. Didn't the Chagny child make a comment about something strange like that?

"I'm afraid you think these tellings more than just tales, Madam Giry."

I watched as her eyes floated to a desk a few feet away from us. It was old, cracking, rarely dusted, and on it sat a thinly framed photo of a smiling couple. Around it where the usual objects from the other dancers' rooms—makeup, oddly shape perfume bottles, wigs. I relined my eyesight to where she was looking however, and it was definitely at the photo. It was in colour, but the thick kind of dark, blotty colours that reminded me of my own childhood photos. This was obviously an old photograph from the 80's. The woman in the picture appeared to be a very young and actually very beautiful, Madam Giry. The man was older than she, with prematurely greying hair, a strong jaw, and a charming smile. Mister Giry, I presume.

I kept my place, but her eyes never returned to me. Sadness seemed to pour not just from her face, but from many other objects in the room. The low ceiling and carpet seemed to sag with a vilely held depression. I swallowed. I've have to start somewhere.

"Is that your husband, Madam?"

_"Oui, Monsieur."_

I couldn't believe I was about to interrogate a widow. "And…how did he die, Madam?"

"A very long time ago," Her voice was wispy, like the smoke from a blown out candle. My heart sank into my stomach. _You're a horrible, terrible person, Watson._"My daughter, Meg…she never knew him. Only in death did she know him. I tried to make up for him by creating my life around her. There is nothing I wouldn't do for my daughter."

"Your daughter, the dancer here." I nodded solemnly, storing the information away. "Do you think that she is in danger…from—from this…" I fought to bring the fairytale word of 'phantom' to my lips.

_"Non, Monsieur. _Not Meg—and my husband, Jules, he died of Cancer, not the ghost," her voice seemed to rise for a moment, taking on a harder edge like she was defending the spirit. She stopped suddenly, as if realizing what she was doing, and her tone abruptly softened. " The Opera Ghost is a charming spirit—capable of many wonderful things if we only listen. That is all he asks for. Obedience…," She began to tremble, and her long figures bawled tightly in a fist. I recognized the physical withdraw at once—it reminded me of someone about to go into a fit.

I fought to not step nearer in comfort for her, thinking it inappropriate. "Ma'am?"

"You don't _understand!"_ The women suddenly cried, and she marched towards me, grasping my jacket. "You and your busybody friend _do not_ _understand!_ This is so much bigger than a few abstract murders! This is _bigger_ than killing! Bigger than _life_!"

"Madam! Madam, please!" I clasped her hands, pulling them from my shirt to stop her clawing. Something was seriously wrong here—her eyes were wild and fiery with determination. The way she spoke of the murderer, as if she knew him very well. Maybe I wasn't just imagining that defensive tone of voice in her from before.

"I have worked practically all my life here, _Monsieur!_ And that voice, that horrible…wonderful _voice_…it spoke to me from the shadows. The box—five—_oui_, always five, he always asked it to be open," Her breathing was heavy, like her buried words had contain her life's energy and it was slipping away with every secret, ever slipped word. I managed to bring her to sit down into chair near her desk.

"I am the house concierge—so, after I did not oblige at first. But that voice….kept calling…kept asking…following me…everywhere in the Opera. There was no escape…"

_There is no escape…._I blinked rapidly. Something followed her all throughout the Opera…that feeling of paranoia…a voice...like in the hallway with Raoul….

She suddenly blinked, her eyes wet, as if she just realized that I was still here. "Oh Monsieur, please leave. You don't understand…"

"Please," I pressed, leaning towards her, as she brought her knuckle up to her mouth to bite at it. "Please…I want to," She had no idea how desperately I wanted to understand.

She took a deep breath.  
><em><br>"_I refused him at first…and…and—that was when the first…_accident_," the façaded word cracked in her mouth like shattering glass, and she winced. "I took a client that ordered box five for the performance of _'Hannibal'_over ten years ago…and…when I went to check if he needed anything…he was…he was dead. Strangled in his seat."

My heart skipped. Multiple murders from over ten years.

"And you're sure this is the same…ghost?"

She nodded profusely. "Always Monsieur. His voice, his great voice is absolutely unmistakable. It has only grown in power over the years. Oh, if only you could hear it as I can Monsieur. It's like it's in my head…like a music box…it never truly leaves me. Not here, anyway. He has great skill over that beautiful voice. It is always him."

She slowly opened the drawer of her desk with a small key from under a purple perfume bottle. Inside where piles upon piles of neatly stacked red envelopes. Just like the one she had read from the day before. She dug under it to produce the most wrinkled and crumpled envelope of them all.

"I was so very frightened _Monsieur_…so_ ashamed_ for not listening….on the corpse was this note. And—after that—I start listening to him. How could I not? A man was _dead_…a man was dead because of _me!_Anything he wanted I saw to, though, usually it was just small things: left over candles, paper, wires, batteries. I left it in box five every evening before I left, and every morning was a note….and a rose."

She slid the tattered package over to me, and I carefully took out the paper, and saw that it was covered in starches and bits of dried rose pedals stuck to various amounts of wax. The handwriting was small, regal, yet childish, and clumsy…but still held a maddening orderliness to it, like when one stares at a very large maze on paper for the first time, sensing there's an eventually enlightening end to it all, if one were to just stare long enough… Sadly, it was all in French so I had no idea what it said.

"Everyone thought I was crazy! _I_ thought I was crazy!" Madam Giry went on; her voice becoming more and more stable as she unwound her tight confession to me. "But, I found that as long as he was pleased, nothing bad ever became of the Opera. I tried to convince the previous managers of why I was so careful about the House box, but they always laughed. No one ever believed me—even with the notes! I went to the police! _Nothing!_I managed to convince a Persian man, a lead officer from his home land that had recently visited here, to answer my plea for help—but the phantom caught on to what I was doing and…somehow...the phantom befriended the daroga—'the daroga', it is what the phantom calls him...and the man wished me to never mind the poor creature and not send for police again…"

"Is that Persian man still here? In town?"

"Ten years later, _monsieur_? I do not know. He had lovely dark skin, eyes of jade, and a funny cap. That is all I remember of him."

"Not even a name?"

_"Non_," She whispered, going quiet.

I leaned back from her, the muscles in my neck tight from the atmosphere. Good God.

"Is that all you can tell me, madam?"

She suddenly swooped her blue eyes to the floor, then to mine, then back to the photo. I nodded slowly for her to go on.

"Then…he started making promises to me." Her voice became very soft, almost dreamy. Her eyes glued to her husband's face.

"Promises?"

"First for my personal confidence so that I would not tell again. He'd sing to me, Monsieur…and if his speaking voice is angelic, than his singing is Heaven itself. I swear Monsieur, that when he would sing…I would see my dear Jules. He captivated me with it….then for my job. I received extra payment from him, if I started deliver massages to the pervious managers of the Opera. So I did—and…although they thought me mad, they had 20 thousand euros deposited to me to place in box five for the ghost to stop from fixtures breaking and the scaring of their cast. Whatever the Opera Ghost had said must have convinced them. They nearly had to refund a whole house once when they did not pay on time, the damage was so server."

"20 _thousand _euros?"

"A month,"

I let out a breath. "You keep saying pervious managers? Are the two managers that Sherlock and I met earlier new here?"

"Very. They, and the patrons De Changy only started supporting and running the Opera about three months ago."

"I see," I whispered out. There was a small whimpering sound, and suddenly the woman began to cry. Alarmed, I reached out.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"He promised that Meg would rise in the ranks of the ballet—her_ dream_, _monsieur_, her _dream_!—if…"

I gazed deep into her weeping eyes. "If?"

"If…I took down the bodies and cleaned them, of the murder."

_What?_I jumped up, my teeth grinding, my jaw locking, my face burning in anger. I couldn't believe it. It was her? She was the suspect to Sherlock's theory! I now understood the subtext to Sherlock sending me here, and I wanted to yell so loud that he'd certainly hear it clear across the Opera House.

"You do realize that you've just _assisted_ a murderer? Do you understand what I am saying?" My voice rose several decibels, but yet I somehow managed to not yell at her, to not scream it in here. _These people were all bloody fucking mad!  
><em>  
>Madam Giry simply steeled herself at my anger, her tears easing in flow. "I am willing to go to jail, <em>Monsieur.<em>I know my place. But I only beg that you and your friend understand yours. It is not here. You will be killed."

I flexed my hands, fighting the urge to actually inform the police—but there was so much against me. The manager's request, Madam Giry's source of direct information, and besides…

I slumped back down into the opposite chair, rubbing my eyes with the heel of my hands.

"It doesn't matter," I muttered to her. "Sherlock says that it's in the wounds that the bodies matter, not the dust and dirt. I…I don't understand him right now, because usually it's all the small things that matter. But," I still glared daggers at the old woman. "Considering he understood that they had been cleaned, he's obviously moving on."

I paused, our blue eyes battling.

I wanted to integrate, or at least gently ask about her previous experience but one look in her cold blue eyes told me just about everything I needed to know. She was an obvious case of Stockholm Syndrome. I had no idea if she had actually cleaned the bodies under the killer's promise, district threat or because she felt some type of mental compassion for the cloaked killer stalking around here, but I knew she was soon to be a dead end for information if I kept a threating appearance.

She glanced regretfully at the dying flower petals inside the envelope, longing to look after it as if it was her greatest position. I almost didn't have the heart to take it, but I quickly cleared my throat, careful to not still be pricked by its crumbling, needle sharp thorn.

I pressed my hand to my forehead in frustrated regret. Now that I reacted so hostily, there's no way she'd probably even allow my admittance again. "Madam, I'm sorry. I'm sorry but I need to take that rose from you as evidence." I pulled on some gloves, and carefully slide the flower into a ziploc back, placing it into my bag. I then remembered the rest of the drawer.

"And those letters. My friend may not believe them now—but we need any leads we can get. And if you compromise with me over information and items, then I will not report you to the police. But you must promise me that you will never interfere with the crime scene again. Understand?" I made to the door, glancing back inside once more. She only looked at me gravely, the wrinkles in her cheeks more pronounced; her sad face seeming wasted and pitiless.

"I'm…I'm sorry, for…for this whole mess. It's tangling up just about everyone here." I slowly stood, bowing to her awkwardly; unsure of where either of us now stood when it came to this strange situation.

Her blue eyes seemed to glow in the shadows.

"Please, Doctor. If you think me mad by any other story I have told you, please, at least heed this. Keep your hand at the level of your eyes, monsieur."

I nodded, trying to shake yet another feeling of dejavu. I humbly asked for her two tiny House keys as that only Sherlock and I could keep an eye on the place. She gently pressed them into my palm, and I felt embarrassed when her eyes beheld the tremor in my cupped hand.

"I understand what you have to do," She said to me slowly, carefully enunciating in strained English. "I only ask that you leave my daughter, and now me out of it. Now I kindly bid you _adieu_, _Monsieur_."

She showed me to the door, and I gratefully stepped outside, my ears ringing with everything I had encountered and justified to myself within a matter of ten or less very intense minutes.


	10. Raoul and Christine   Couples Domestic

**~*Raoul and Christine/ Couples Domestic*~**

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><p>I spent the rest of the morning, and most of the afternoon trying to find Sherlock, which proved to be ungodly hard in the mist of the English Performance being revamped to now hold privilege to the newest girl to take the stage, a Miss Christine Daaé. An hour before I finally got caught ahold of the dizzying manager Richard, I had the awkwardly lurking opportunity to stumble across a rather private moment between Miss Daaé and the De Chagny lad. It was as I had easily predicted that they were an item—or well, more so, he was trying to make them become one.<p>

It was when I was making my way to the manager's office, only to catch the contrastingly loud tones of the teens talking together. I stared out of the corner of my eye as inconspicuously as I could, hiding behind a wide pillar. They both stood apart from each other innocently enough. He studied her shyly for a moment, and then stepped out of her way. The girl only seemed to barely notice him in passing. But it was then that the boy suddenly turned on his heel, and made after her. He walked slowly behind her, and I watched his hands clenching and unclenching themselves habitlity. When she noticed his notions, she stopped, but still refused to turn around. They stood motionless for a time, their eyes far away.

"Christine," the boy's eyes remained looking at his shoes, his hair carefully tied back, already dressed for the night's performance. I was surprised when he finally spoke. He almost seemed to be…pleading for some reason.

"Don't Raoul," the blonde put both of her hands to her ears, her already tiny frame seeming to shrink, and her back muscles tightening in light cloth of her dress. I blinked at her English; clear and resounding as her singing voice. "I can't listen to any of this right now. I just can't _think_. You shouldn't have come here. To see you here in passing—sure, that's fine, but _stalking_ me—"

"I'm _not stalking_ you, Christine. Please, you can at least tell me why're you're hiding from me." It was odd to watch them carry on a conversation without being face to face. The girl's expression from my angle was unreadable.

"Oh Raoul," the girl seemed to whisper just for him, but all voices carry great distances here, and I easily heard her murmur: "you know why."

The boy's fists tightened, his teeth gritting in his jaw. He slowly said his next words carefully, his tone rising. "He's not real, Christine. He is not real!"

"Raoul, _lower your voice!_" The blonde hissed, and she swung around on her heel to face him, her pretty, small features twisted in fury. The boy swallowed at the intensity of her glare. He mixed his expression, searching for a different approach. He seemed to settle for one, his voice gentle.

"I say 'hopeless romantic', you say 'stalker'," he chuckled darkly. He lifted both hands to act as a balance beam between them.

"Raoul," The girl's voice seemed frosted; her long hair pulled back into ringlets that tumbled down her back. "I'm sorry to put you through this, but this isn't a joke."

His look softened as he dropped his gaze from her. "I know it's not," He mumbled quietly. "But I can't keep up this up forever. Christine, there has to be another way—"

"This is the only way Raoul. For God's sake, what makes you not understand that? Why can't you see how much I'm suffering? What could possibly be going through you brain to make you think—"

"I _tried_, Christine. I have! But all I can keep thinking is: Christine Daaé, I lov—"

The girl gasped loudly, and she practically shrieked her next words. "Don't say it! Do you think me crazy, Raoul, or are you just _stupid?_ I said I don't want to hear it."

Raoul's face sharply fell; his expression disappeared at the sting of her words.

"So, this is it, am I right?" The thin frame of the boy still towered over her as he approached. He courageously placed his arm around her waist, pulling her against his chest. He leaned his chin into her hair, resting on the top of her head. Throughout this, the girl made no attempt to reject in his actions, nor pull away. Their tired blue eyes seemed to stare into the darkness, and I noticed his grip tighten on her as the hall lights dimmed to adjust to the silently appearing stars as night fell over Paris. "You'll tell me you hate me, just to scare me away."

The girl was silent for a moment, her voice a fragile as glass when she finally spoke. "_I'm_ the scared one, Raoul."

"You wouldn't be if you just let me see you more—" Raoul began easily, his lips moving against her hair.

The girl wildly tore herself from his grasp, her ballet shoes tapping as she increased the distance between them. Although she let go, Raoul kept ahold of her hand. "Don't start Raoul. Not tonight. _Just_... not tonight. We can't—"

"You've just lead me on then?" The anger in the teen's voice was intensifying. His

"I wasn't _leading _you anywhere! You keep _following_ me!"

"And I won't _stop!_ _Zut, ne moi poussez pas!_ The teen's voice rose and then cracked into some type of unrestrained French.

"I have to go now, Raoul." The blonde was already disappearing into the shadows. The boy's pale fists clinched again, and I opened the door quickly, nonchalantly, as if I hadn't heard a single, confusing, teenaged hormone driven, cryptic thing in my entire life. But before I softly shut the door I heard him say under his breath:

"I'll see you tonight then, Miss Daaé."

_**~*~Later...~*~**_

When I finally found Sherlock, it was in the place I had thought last to look of all places. Our hotel room. I stepped in, and changed just as quickly as he was without exchanging a word at first, careless to the honest amount of time it took to meander a block from the Opera as dust set in to the hotel. When I spied the time to be about 45 minutes till our expected arrival time at the play, I began to explain to Sherlock all that I had uncovered throughout my surprisingly eventful day. When I finally turned to inspect my own appearance in the mirror, I chuckled at Sherlock's resounding reflection. It wasn't, of course, that my flatmate didn't dress nicely—but to see him with a neck tie of all things. It just seemed much too painful. And his gloomy expression didn't help. I laughed again, and said:

"Look'it you, cleaning up nice."

Sherlock adjusted a silver cufflink on his wrist, and then continued on to fix his silver spats, rolling his eyes.

"John, must you make this performance any more unbearable than it already is?"

"What?" I asked in mock surprise: "I thought you were looking forward to this."

"Before, perhaps. Now with a literally limitless entrance into the under belly of the Opera, this is a mere waste of time."

"We have to go, you know."

"We have to go as much as bloody Anderson has to go home and pretend to love his wife!" He raised his voice, crinkling his nose in disgust. But not at the infidelity, and more so the idea of shagging itself.

I stared at him, slightly stunned by his mood swing. "University must have been _miserable_ for you."

Sherlock picked up his phone, the bright screen colouring his pale eyes.

I sighed, realizing what mood he was sure to be sliding into next, "Well, I'm still going."

He looked up with an impassive look on his face before he reached into his black vest pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

I raised my eyebrows. "Smoking?"

"I said it was impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London. I'll take what I can here."

"So you're joining me?"

"I have to go as much as Lestrade had to choose blood Anderson of all people to be his sniffer dog!" His twisted the cigarette angrily in between his fingers.

"Would you get off of Anderson, Sherlock?" I furrowed my brow, shaking my head, slightly confused at what he was getting at. His mood swings I had gotten used to; but sometimes I still even know how to react to them. "And what? You mean for that drugs bust?"

"Drugs bust—he broke into our flat!"

"You shouldn't have anything to hide," I charged into a subject that Sherlock and I rarely treaded upon, rather tactlessly. I certainly didn't want to get into some row that the next room over would no doubt hear as a couple's domestic. But I was beginning to get a little tired of Sherlock thinking he was never at fault for anything.

Sherlock let a serious pause stretch between us but I didn't back down my statement nor my adamant stare. His eyes locked in frustration for a moment, but then seemed to cool over into that defaulted indifference.

"Look, _I'm_ going." I managed calmly, breaking the fleeting aggravation between us with my sensibility. There was only one way out of this, literally. Something he would never have the ability to swallow his pride for. I made for the door.

He pulled the cigarette into his mouth before grasping his jacket. "Wait," he suddenly said, his voice echoing into the hall as I opened the hotel room door. I turned back to look at him.

"You forgot the key," and he placed the spare into my hand as he walked out the door and turned to lock it. I smiled, and pocketed it.

"John?" Sherlock asked as we strode in silence towards the Hotel's main entrance.

"Yes?"

He paused at the gift shop, and I tried my best to discreet position myself so that if that cute girl was still working inside, she couldn't possibly see me.

"I need to make a call. But would you pop inside and buy me a lighter?" His tone held all the motives of the art of tongue-and-cheek. He must have read my mistake with that girl somewhere stupidly incredulous, like in my posture, or perhaps my hair. But all in all, he somehow knew. Even at the end of the day.

Did _nothing_ escape this man?

I glared daggers at him and continued out the door and into the night.

* * *

><p><strong>French Translations:<strong>

Raoul's: "And I won't stop! God damn it, don't push away!"


	11. The Elder de Chagny

**AN:** Now things are _really _about to heat up...:) Thank you SO very much for enjoying, and the generous reviews! (Here's looking at you, PhantomInspector and TheNightingaleSighed, and many, many others! :3 It means SO much!)

**~*The Elder de Chagny*~**

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><p>In all my years, I never thought I'd honestly enjoy an opera, epically with someone as juxtaposing as Sherlock by my side. I suppose even that shouldn't come to me entirely like some sort of unseen shock. Sherlock loved music; He hated musicians.<p>

Even so, the show of _"Hannibal" _was breathtaking, and the entire house adored Christine Daaé. There was not a single flaw in her performance to the English patrons. I had to bite the side of my cheek little to not chuckle at the idea of Co-Manager Richard "happy" as Giry and Marchniarm's designs to let her preface La Carlotta. His emotional spectrum seemed nearly as limited as Sherlock's.

It was during intermission that I started to gawk at my surroundings and soI took a ganger at the box's centered near us and across the way. I found the brilliant glowing plaque of Box Three across from us. Sherlock, stubbornly and against Madam Giry's wishes, chose Box Five for us to sit in. I had to admit, maybe the old woman was still jumpy from years past, the view was breathtaking. I glanced at the upper levels of the house, taking in the crowd before my eyes returned yet again to Box Three. The stick-like figures of the De Chagny brothers led deferrable shadows. Raoul was easy to spot as he was still so young—but it was his brother—the allusive one that Sherlock had mentioned before—that really kept my attention. His shadow was much taller and larger as they both sat with perfect posture.

Then it hit me. The Count? No...Sherlock mentioned the boy's parents traveled...then...the elder brother? If we could acquire an audience after the show, he'd surely have to know something about whatever the hell was going on—perhaps even more information from Raoul again as well! I discreetly tap Sherlock's arm, but he shrugged me off as the show was about to begin again.

Christine was just as brilliant as the first act—and soon she had the crowd eating out of her small palm. Even Sherlock seemed to be absolutely captivated by her, and, after a partially amazing song, he stood up with the rest of the audience to applaud. I was surprised but I only stood really to keep my eyes locked on the De Chagnybrothers. The applause lasted decently, but soon it tuckered out and left only Raoul and Sherlock standing. Raoul was about to sit when he took notice of the other box, Sherlock's aggressive stance, and Raoul continued to cheer and applauded louder than ever. Sherlock mimicked and soon the pair found themselves in ridiculous competition over praise for the young singer. Confused, I could only lock eyes helplessly with an equally confused elder De Chagny as we stared. Finally, after going on for much longer than an a applause ever soon be, I sank down in my chair to hide and grasped the back of Sherlock's jacket to pull him down hard and back into his seat.

"Perfect," he boasted to me, his face full of colour for once from so much yelling. I just stared, my face screwed up into wanted to laugh and wanting to leave now and avoid the embarrassment.

"Making yourself as socially awkward as possible no matter what country? Yeah, I'd say you've pretty much got that covered."

"The boy think's we're in _competition_," Sherlock continued flippantly. "He will surely confront me—"

"—And allow us time with the upcoming Count!" I finished with realization. Sherlock looked proud over his manipulation of the boy's emotions, but I swear for a split second I had caught Sherlock speechless over Christine's singing…I nearly believed his act myself.

Towards the end of the night, I noticed a strange, red glow coming from the blackness of the De Chagny box, and startled to what it might be, I leaned towards Sherlock for justification. He did, after all, explore the upper platform and lights. Maybe it was nothing."Sherlock?" I turned in the flickering darkness to try and catch the eye of my flatmate. "Sherlock, you have got to see this."

No response. That's…new.

"Sherlock?" I leaned a bit more towards his seat, and found, miraculously, that Sherlock was completely engaged by the performance going on. More so, the voice in the air, that was ringing clear and pitch perfect as the bells Notre Dame. The young woman's voices seemed to fill the entire theatre with captivation and peace—she was singing about summer time and the beauty of the flowers, or some nonsense. Her soft, brilliant, soprano voice falling and rising up and down many octaves as easily as someone was playing the scales on a piano. It was absolutely unbelievable just how impressive her voice was. I tore my eyes from the stage, looking into Sherlock's. His pale eyes were wide, focused, and completely _unobservant._In the flashes of light, I swear his pupils almost looked dilated like he was off his head on some drug. Confused, I raised my eyebrow, quietly snapping my fingers in front of his face.

Nothing.

It was so impressive to see Sherlock so completely enthralled by a phenomenon other than his mind or same bizarre murder—but this was important. I placed my hand on his shoulder, giving him a gentle shake. "Sherlock," I hissed. "You there mate?"

He slowly blinked, his face suddenly unfreezing and snapped his head towards me. "What?"  
>I expected him to be alarmed, even possibly miffed at me. But this time his voice was soft, thoughtful, his eyes still read out to me cloudy and vague.<p>

"Are…you all right?"

"Yes," Sherlock said to me slowly, pulling his eyes from mine and setting them back to the singer. "Just thinking."

"About the girl?" I was happy the darkness hid the smugness in my smile.

"No," Sherlock snapped, seeming to come about his usual self more. "She just reminds me of someone." My grin faltered.

"Who?"

He sighed, dramatically, and I nearly rolled my eyes. Was it going to be worth pressing into to this matter? "It isn't important now. It was a very long time ago."

When he next locked his eyes into mine, they were clear and impassive. Normal. "What is it that you wanted to show me?"

"I—" I began, but something caught my eye on the stage.

Christine Daaé was suddenly no longer standing up. In fact, she had fainted!

There was a mad rush over Christine fainting, the pink and blue satin of her dress lying out across the dark, floating stage. I jumped up, as the entire audience seemed to do so, a wave of adrenaline and shock rousing the crowd of patrons young and old. Sherlock was instantly out the door—though, if his plan was still going accordingly, I couldn't tell you. Although we were out first, it was merely seconds before the roar of the rest of the theater followed, flowing out from the doors and stairwells like a surreal sea of black, white, reds and golds. Amongst the crowd of frightened ballet dancers, actors, and the loud strain callings of the managers for everyone to remain calm and not to panic about the star, I noticed Sherlock slip into a separate passage. I gave chase, losing sight of him through the twists and turns of evading dashing work-men and the changing of sets as large props were carried past me. I ducked under one, and nearly ran into a thick, stolid bloke with burnt ginger hair and a thin pencil mustache. He narrowed his brown eyes at me in disbelief, and then opened his mouth to yell what I'm sure was something terrible in French at me. I cleared my way down the rest of the line, and heard a couple of the other work-men yell at him in English and laugh: "Joe Buquet, watch your tongue!"

In the rush, I ran towards the darkest, leanest coat I could find, and reached my arm out to gasp ahold of what I thought to be Sherlock's jacket. The man abruptly stopped, and turned swiftly with a cold, triumphant look.

I let go instantly upon realizing my mistake. "I am so sorry, I—I thought you were—"

But the gentleman didn't seem to regard me. Abruptly the cold cast of his eyes melted as he grinned, the action crinkling the worry lines about his eyes, breaking their indifferent hold. He seemed to be about twenty-seven. A bit younger than Sherlock and I.

"Brother, really, keep up! Haven't you been here many a time? This is really absurd. And why are you breathing like that? You're a gentlemen. The girl simply swooned from delight, I assure you. There's no need for all the stress."

I realized at once that he wasn't addressing me, but the huffing and puffing figure behind me—the shallow, sickly figure of Raoul de Chagny. The boy looked nearly pallor as the afflicted singer. His hair was, for once, out of his eyes, and I noticed the red tingeing there, threating to spill into tears. He jogged up to his brother—their height difference noting on the charming as the elder predominated over him. The lad bent down, hands to his pant legs as he fought to breathe. I instantly felt all the more out of place, and wondered how I managed to lose track of Sherlock so quickly. Damn it all.

The tall, elder Chagny regarded me dryly with a smirk that could rival Mycroft's condescendence anyday.

"He informed me that this was a shorter passage, but yet he can barely run it."

The boy looked up, thin strains from his ponytail falling into his eyes as he stared with emasculated distain. "This _is_a shorter passage, but this is more so about getting to Miss Daaéquickly and avoiding the crowd," He began, his eyes following his brother's as they suddenly eyes flashed to me. He abruptly straightened up, and pulled back in surprise.

"_Docteur_, _Oh Dieu merci!"_He cried. I tried to appear like I understood what was going on.

The cool eyes of the lad's brother stuck to me with a thoughtful look of surprise. "A doctor? Just the man we were hoping for, correct?"

"Yes, yes!" The boy ravished in a type of feverish delight, his eyes wild, sweat glistening down his throat. He grabbed my arm roughly, and began forcing me forward along the passage with a jolty, tremulous kind of walk. "_Docteur_, you have to forgive me sudden capture of your work, I need you desperately. The fools here are calling for a doctor from the nearby hospital, but _she_ needs _you." _He coughed and added quickly under his breath_: "Someone_ who _really _understands what the hell is going on."

His brother walked easily beside us, his lean form creating a rather imposing shadow along the dim wall that seemed to rise not just above the lad and I, but the entire atmosphere of emotion with clean, direct logic. But it was the kind of logic that I felt came from years of easing turmoil, and not running with it, like my flatmate. His presence so easily reminded me of Mycroft Holmes; but yet it was much easier going in nature. He spoke in way that seemed to make one question just how much he knew or not; whereas Mycroft not only forced you to feel his omnipotence, but practically speak the words he wanted you to. "What the hell is going on, indeed," he crooned in a subtle, warm, mocking tone.

The boy's jaw locked and unlocked itself in a polite attempt to not snap at his brother. "This is _not_ just a typical fainting spell, _Philippe!"_

"Ah, but of course it's not Raoul," His brother winked at me slyly, and I tried my best to wear some type of facial expression that pleased both of them at once. Is it possible to be deadly serious and amused?

The boy tugged at my arm to my attention, "Your friend— _Monsieur _Holmes? Where is he? This place is madness with yet another 'accident' on stage—please tell me you know where he is."

"He's—he's up ahead, I'm sure." That was only half a lie. I wasn't sure at all.

"Up ahead?" Raoul let go of me, alarmed. The blue of his eyes seemed to darken with jealousy, and I suddenly remembered Sherlock's plan of fake competition.

"Yes, I was following him to the girl's dressing room, but ah," the walls around me all looked the same whether I was headed forward or backwards. "He obviously knew where to go better than I did."

Philippe chuckled beside me as if he understood all too well my painful tendency to become lost in this place. "At least he's not trapped in the crowd and is hopefully making himself useful to Christine." He paused, and his eyes regarded me with a kind of forlorn spark of mischievousness that took me by surprise. Did he not…care for Raoul's affection for the girl?

"Though, hopefully, not too much."

Raoul tossed his head away from his brother's comments, quickly picked up his footing and soon was racing further and further ahead of us. "It's right this way," the boy called back with controlled annoyance. "I'm going ahead."

Philippe de Chagny sighed beside me, but his pacing remained the same. "Forgive my brother's hot-headedness. I've tried and tried, but his emotions always get the best of him."

I laughed bitterly inside of my throat, the sound dying before it reached any audible level. Sometimes I wished Sherlock would let even_ one_emotion get the better of him. "It's all right. Isn't that like all boys when it comes to girls?"

Philippe agreed quietly, and he stared steadily ahead and through the darkness as if he could still see his brother's racing form. "She's not good for him, that Christine Daaé."

"Not good for _him?"  
><em>  
>"Forgive this personal anditedote: but yes. She isn't. Don't get me wrong, Doctor— I'm terribly sorry, I haven't gotten your name yet."<p>

"It's John. John Watson."

"Ah," He paused for a second, never meeting my eyes directly now. "Yes." Something in his tone made me feel like my name didn't suit his tastes, and I was better off to him remaining nameless. But yet, strangely, there seemed to be flicker of recognition that flashed through his eyes and disappeared.

"Doctor, before I begin, what you do think of my brother?"

"Well, he's seems to be a fine teenager. I've only just arrived with my colleague here for a private investigation, so I haven't gotten to know anyone well."

His brother breathed scornfully out. "Yes, the murder investigation." A ringed hand rose up and pitched the bridge of his nose.

The nerves on the back of my neck pricked. "My brother is _obsessed _with it."

"Well, considering your family hold of the arts, I'd imagine it would be a very upsetting thing." I added politely, unsure of where the conversation was headed, and if I should be getting along to the singer faster.

"Of course, of course. I do not mean to treat it like an annoyance. The murder is a terrible, horrible tragedy and I'm most grateful that the mangers have hired such famous investigators." I tried not to flush at his words; were Sherlock and I honestly _famous_now?

"But it is my brother's predacious imagination about this place." He continued brashly. "He's getting more and more distressed about the Opera, and, most frontally, Miss Daaé's safety within it."

I raised my eyebrow. "Her safety, you say?"

Philippe shook his head slightly, as if he still didn't quite believe what he was about to say. "He's mad about the idea that this place has," He hesitated slightly in his perfect English diction. "…nefarious intentions towards the girl."

I stopped my stride, all my previous looks from the boy dropping on me like the crashing of the universe. "He…believes that she's _next?_" My question came out much more dramatically and in an intense whisper, but his brother seemed to enjoy my genuine concern of it, and, strangely, he smiled as he waited for me. I blinked and regained my stride with him.

"Precisely. And you see, that's why this girl isn't good for him. Honestly, I highly doubt Christine is in danger to be the next victim as much as anyone else is. But my brother…he's…how can I put this lightly? Hmm." He tapped his jeweled fingers along his jaw as he searched for the word. "Ah, intolerant."

"Intolerant?" I swallowed.

"To most unpleasant things, yes. He's recently returned from sailor training—father's idea to strengthen his constitution. But Raoul's always just been a gentle kid—it's not anyone's fault. If you ask me, it's not even a fault at all. But alas, what father says goes in Raoul's world. Anyway, it was a yearlong, vigorous training…and well, since father and mother were traveling upon his return, it fell to me to receive him. And he stepped off the boat, and practically had a conniption about even going near water again. He's traumatized by it. And, I've found that the more stress he's under, the worse off his body gets. You've noticed, by now, his hollowness, his flitching actions," His brother's eyes dropped to the ground, his voice becoming softer.

"And even since he found that Christine Daaé lives here, works here, at the Opera, he's sought at nothing to be near her. Now, at first, I was over-joyed. I remember thinking to myself: 'Finally! A school-girl chaser—he _is_ a Chagny!' He seemed in much higher spirits. But then….I don't even know how to explain it, Doctor. The more time he spent with her, the more trying I found him to be. He suddenly has become very agitated and even hateful of me. He's rarely home. And he's becoming sicker. Whatever is going on—whatever that girl is _lying _about him to believe—he's taking it straight to the heart. And I've vital sources stating that that girl is lacking one."

My head spun from his rush of information. "Sick? Well, perhaps I can help. And…I'm sorry, repeat that other part? Christine…lacks compassion?"

"A heart, I'd say." Philippe deadpanned. My stomach dropped slightly, the words from Moriarty echoing in my ears from that pool oh-so-long-ago.

"A heart," I echoed hoarsely.

"I'm sorry," Philippe sighed, thinking that his jump in his explanation was the reason for my tone. "My family has known theDaaé family since childhood, and so you can imagine that this has only increased Raoul's fixation upon her. Anyhow, now that they've found each other again, I've taken upon me to research her past. Her father died about three years ago, and she's been distant, cold, and lonesome ever since. Her singing voice was dreadful, even before her father's death—but her dancing kept her in Madam Giry's care. But, from the reports I've read, she's increased over the year to become quite the blossoming soprano. But, even in this…._Dieu,_" He touched a tentative hand to his forehead, his eyes defocused in worry.

"I've afraid she's just far too _damaged_ now. She'll reject my brother. She'll not just break his heart, but, with his fragility, she'll_ kill_him. There are studies now that claim that people can die from heart-break, you know."

He laughed solemnly at this, as if the 'joking' idea of dying from heart-break would disillusion him further from losing his brother so effortlessly.

I remained quiet for a moment in my thoughts, trying to memorize all the information I could to share with Sherlock later on.

The eldest son of the Count quickly reached back and rubbed at the back of his neck, a trait I noticed his younger brother do as well. "Doctor, I'm sorry for forcing all of that on to you. I suppose I just need someone on the inside to keep an eye on him. Would you….?" His question wavered in the damp air.

"Oh, oh yes. I'll do my best. You—you mentioned he was…sick? May I help?"

His brother smiled sadly. "I'm not sure that he has a kind of sickness that can be cured."

"I have a flatmate with a problem like that, and, from what I've been told, I'm making process."

"In the positive or negative?"

"It's progress," I smiled with a twitch of my lip.

The young man regarded me wearily before he finally spoke. "Look at him if you might, but he's hard to catch— _Raoul?"_ The tone of the soon-to-be-Count changed abruptly, breaking our private conversation. The end of the hall had been reached without my realizing it. The long legs of Philippe reached the lad much quicker than I did. He was standing in front of the door, practically blocking it off from being entered. Sherlock stood off to the side, clearly annoyed that _he_was being denied anywhere.

"Raoul, come off of that at once! These gentlemen here are coming to help Miss Daaé!"

"The _doctuer_is allowed in—but not him." Raoul twisted, his hair fanning down across his face as it broke free of his ponytail that lay on the back of his neck, his eyes livid and dark as they pierced Sherlock's solid gaze.

"Is there anyone in there now with her?" I began stepping towards Raoul carefully. The lad squared his shoulders as if he was trying to keep a very dangerous presence out of the room.

"I went in—but she asked to be left alone."

"Raoul, the doctor needs to see her. Please move." His brother said calmly.  
>Raoul went to step aside and Sherlock quickly strode to the door. Raoul stiffed and jumped back into pace, his expression furious.<p>

_"Je ne sais pas ce que vous avez fait à mon garçon, mais c'est mon travail d'enquêter sur tout ce qui a été, et que vous vous trouvez dans le cours,"_Sherlock snapped with prevalent potency.

"Sherlock," I warned, tired of being lost in translation. Whatever he was saying obviously wasn't helping the lad. It was clear that whatever that had just gone on between him and Christine Daaé had severely upset him.

"What's all this then?" I heard the frantic voice of Manager Richard. Not far behind him was that same gingered-man- Joseph something—and Manager Moncharimin.

"Miss Daaé is to be left alone." Raoul gritted out, his wiry framed tight and his breathing hoarse.

"What? Boy! For God's sake, move! We need to see her!"

"All of this yelling probably is not helping the young lady," Moncharimin murmured under the yells of his co-manager.

"Raoul," Philippe strode forward with cold-cut authority and grasped his brother's arm. Raoul looked up at his brother, his mouth open as if to say something, but he then tore his arm roughly from his brother's grasp, and marched up to Sherlock, his entire face seething.

"I—" The boy began, but his words were never finished.

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><p><em>Awkward cut-off—why u so awkward?<em>

*ahem*

* * *

><p><em><strong>FRENCH TRANSLATIONS:<strong>_

Sherlock's: "I don't know what you're getting at boy, but it's my job to investigate everything that's been going on, and you're in the way."

* * *

><p>In retrospective point, I at first wrote a draft that included itself into delicious amounts of detail about<em> Hannibal<em>, but as I read over _Phantom_ again, I found that it truly wasn't described as much as it brought to light the relationship between other characters in relation to Christine's singing...nods to a particular Sherlock story here...hmm...and well...Sherlock has Mycroft...it's time we understood a bit more about Raoul**'**s brother. I'm sorry, but he was just begging to be fleshed out.

A note to PhantomInspector- thank you SO very much for your encouraging, yet correcting reviews! ^.^" I'm always so delighted and embarrassed to hear what you think. I fixed the random capitalization spellings and as much of the misbegotten French that I could, and I do apologize again over the use of the Persian man's title. I honestly had NO idea. You read "Requiem Mask" as well? I ADORE that comic- but that must have slipped my mind. I'll do my best to try a different title, and I pray that I did not offend anyone. ;-;

Thanks again SO much to everyone! :D


	12. The Voice

**AN**: OOoh, this is gonna be good!

**~*The Voice*~**

* * *

><p>From beyond the door, a loud, ear-drum piercing scream shrilled through the hall, bouncing off the walls and Raoul's pupils imploded into pin-points. Sherlock was the first to notice this—being face to face with the lad, and, uncharacteristically, he reached out to grasp the lad's arm, holding him back. Everyone jumped; Raoul twisted and clawed frantically for the door as if he was the only one that understood what was going on behind it, but Sherlock's hold was strong, he merely reached around to grasp the boy's other arm.<p>

_"Christine! Christine! Êtes-vous d'accord? Pour l'amour de Dieu, Christine!" _Raoul yelled, digging his heels into the tile so hard that they slid backwards. He fell to his knees, struggling to break free.

The managers were the first in the door, and, curiously, I nearly followed suit if it weren't for the sudden presence of Philippe telling me to wait. I glanced questioningly into his eyes and noticed the look of pity that rested there, and, understanding, I squatted down and commanded the kid to look at me. It took a second, but he finally did, his teeth clenched, and, to my complete surprise, his lips turning a dark purple hue, his teeth stained with blood. My eyes flickered to Sherlock questioningly, but Sherlock continued to stare hard at the back of the boy's head._  
><em>  
>"Raoul, I need you to breathe in for me for three counts." The boy obliged, though his eyes remained so wide and so terrified that I nearly ordered Sherlock to let him go. I reached through my bag, pulled out my stethoscope and pressed it to the boy's chest. His breathing was shallow; his heart beats murmuring into one another in hyperventilation. He couldn't get past two before he gasped and had to take a second breath. Yup. That did it alright.<p>

"Raoul, do you realize you're severely asthmatic?"

The boy didn't respond, but Sherlock let go of his arms.

I searched his chest further, more and more alarmed as I went on. He shouldn't be down here at all, breathing this kind of air—or running, or…God, anything! His lungs were terrible! I wanted to suggest that he be taken to a doctor once every three days to breathe with an oxygen machine, but, without warning the lad began to stand, only to begin harshly choking. I pulled through my bag frantically and produced the only asthmatic soother I could find; a paper bag. It wasn't regal for the Count's son by any means, but it'll have to do.

"Here," I pushed it into the lad's hands, and forced him to sit down. "Raoul, you shouldn't be running. Especially down here. You have to take it easy. All of that coughing you're doing is creating sores; that's where the blood is coming from." I stared as carefully as I could into his eyes, but they remained unreadable. I had no idea if he was even comprehending my words. I glanced up at the tall, towering form of his brother, who simply scowled down with scarcely hidden distain for the whole situation. The coldness in his eyes returned full force.

"Miss," Raoul gasped, pushing away the bag from his lips, "Daaé. Is she alright?"

"I'm going to check on her now," Sherlock's voice echoed from the arch of the dressing room's doorway. It closed abruptly.

"Raoul, I need to have a talk with you about your asthma. How long did you know you had it?" I turned my eyes to his brother. "Did _you?"_

Like children that were too rowdy to confess to a mistake, the two males remained quiet. I sighed, and stood, brushing the dirt off of my jeans.

"Please," Raoul's intense inquiry sounded between breaths. "Please check on Miss Daaé ."

The atmosphere hardened to a dry, nervous pitch, but thankfully…or, perhaps rather tactlessly, the elder brother tried to lighten it.

"Quite a knight in shining armor you are," Philippe smirked delicately to his brother, watching the brown paper bag blow up and flushing down with haggard breathing. From the corner of my eye, I saw a thin arm fly out and punch his brother's shoulder. I tried my best to keep a straight face, and I looked into the lad's eyes as meaningfully as I could to express the message that I could make sure Christine was fine, that I honestly thought nothing much of her fainting spell; that he needed to be wary of himself, first. But his dark, jittery gaze seemed to be reflecting on his brother's words. The boy bit down into the corner of the bag and it tore easily in his mouth. I knew what he thinking. It wasn't a _knight _Christine needed to save her.

I opened the thick, wooden door and entered in for my first encounter with the star of the Opera.

A startling bright light lit up the entire dressing room as I entered in. It seemed as if this room was cage within itself. Nothing was visible of the walls. Large, dark mahogany wood drawers, a tall, deep set closet sucked up all the space as if they had been arranged to block every possible side of a person standing in the very middle… The gently crinkling carpet seemed to slightly shift under the pads of my shoes. A simple dressing desk sat adjacent to a glossy, full-length mirror. God, everything has mirrors in this place. It nearly hurt to look at them now; any second I was predicting shards of glass to explode down on the party, horrid lil' insects swarming in to pick us apart. I snapped myself to focus.

The small crowd hid the young ballet dancer from my view. They casted misty shadows along the vaulted ceiling and wood. The furious murmur lifting from the small couch where the girl was laying reminded me of the poor dead girl downstairs, deep into the Opera. I cleared my throat to account that no one else but myself in the room was completely necessary.

Co-manager Richard stood off icy to the right of Christine, and Moncharimin was set on one knee. Sherlock remained ruthless in his gaze upon the poor girl—I watched her tremble, her pupils shrink away and then expand again when he moved his eyes from her. He, of course, probably knew exactly the stress he was causing on her, but his nickel-plated eyes took in everything at once.

I discreetly pushed Sherlock aside with an annoyed glance and put on my best _–it's-going-to-be-all-right-face._ Christine Daaé gasped up at me, and pulled her entire body as far from me as she could. Her slender, pale body positively steeled against the downy pillows against the couch's back. I was taken back for a moment before I felt the over-whelming pressure of Sherlock standing directly over me. Of course, she wasn't scared of _me._

But why was she really _this _scared of Sherlock?

I slowly brought my hand out and patted her knee, trying to let her know that I'd take care of it.

"Christine, my name is Doctor John Watson," I began slowly and softly. "What seems to be the matter? You were giving the performance of a life-time, and but now…" I raised my eyebrow as an indication from her to continue from there, but she merely nodded her blue eyes, barely acknowledging me, simply transfixed by Sherlock. I coiled back to Sherlock in frustration, catching his face from the corner of my eye to try and imagine why she was so stuck to him.

His facial expression told me right away; Sherlock looked _furious. _Beyond livid, beyond…well…any expression really that I had yet to notice him give into. Whatever it was, it was the most extreme point of any type of anger. His lips were curled open into a snarl, his teeth fighting not to present themselves as a threat. His jaw was locked, his eyes narrowed into slits directly at Christine. His were shoulders tucked and defensive. I immediately stood, blocking the view of him from the ailing girl. What the HELL was wrong with him? This was definitely not the time for a mood swing.

I stared at him questioningly, a scowl highlighting my features as I tried to save us the embarrassment of having to literally tell him what he was doing was social unacceptable. Again. He didn't seem to comprehend. It was only when I placed a careful hand to his shoulder and nearly had to walk him backwards towards the door—his eyes still set on Christine the whole way—that he blinked. He quickly gathered his jacket about himself, tightening it so that it greatly enunciated his emancipated frame and height. The dark curls of his hair clung behind his ears.

"Sherlock, I'm going to have to ask you to keep an eye on Raoul. Okay? Sherlock?" I said his name again for good measure and began to shut the door. Dramatically, Sherlock quick as a rabbit, shoved his shoe between the door frame, stopping it. He leaned in towards me, his eyes never reaching mine, but looking over my shoulder—still trying to get at Christine Daaé, God, _really?_

"Sherlock, _what?" _I snapped exasperated. He simply stared, and then removed his shoe from the frame.

"Nothing," His voice was so low that I nearly didn't catch his response. He adjusted his jacket collar up and disappeared into the hall. I let the managers out of the dressing room before finally grasping the singer's attention.

To say that it was an awkward, being alone with an Opera Star, is a true understatement to how I was feeling right then. I shrugged politely, as if to say "Your guess about him is as good as mine", and tried again.

"Working here must make you feel a little trapped, huh?"

"Always," Christine turned the corners of her mouth up into a pleased expression that never reached her eyes. I returned to her side.

"And how are you feeling now?"

"Overwhelmed." She formed this like a question. Poor girl. I wouldn't know what to feel either.

I smiled assuredly. I wouldn't know anything about feeling overwhelmed either. "Between you and me, you ever wonder why people aren't just 'whelmed'?"

I winked to let her know I was joking, but she forever stayed calm and serious. So I went straight from bedside manners to work.

"So tell me," I gently took up her arm, read her pulse, and checked her pupils again. "When was it that you started to feel faint?"

"It was when…" My fingers began to shake from her trembling. "I don't know. After I finished singing," Her eyes flickered away from me. "I don't think I got enough air. This ridiculous costume that—' She struggled for the English term for a moment,"— had to taking…take… down for my size since Carlotta left. I think it's too tight."

I tried not to chuckle, for every time the girl moved the little bells and whistles of her dress made tiny tinkling sounds. "I can understand that. But still, I'm curious in case there's more."

There was a bit of silence as I checked her pulse a second time, and I noticed a sheen of sweat across her forehead. Was I making her nervous?

"Your friend…" her delicate voice shuddered out. "He seemed very pleased with my performance. But now…I'm…sorry if I did something to upset him."

I did laugh this time, and the sound made her jump. "Don't mind him, he's just as baffled as you are, but, ah, for different reasons. You just keep it in your mind that your act was amazing, alright?" I said as I patted her knee again. "You have nothing to apologize for."

The girl took this in, but bit her bottom lip with innocent poise that crumbled to corruption when she spoke next. "You're both here for the murder down stairs, aren't you? There's been so much going on, I forgot what you looked like. But you're so different…" I acknowledged her with my eyes as I continued to work.

"…He scared me that day." She finished softly.

"Yes….well," I fumbled over my words, not needing for a second to wonder who she meant. I didn't want to talk about the murder with her. Not without enough real reason to. She was going through enough. "We're here to try our best to solve this."

She sighed softly, her thin knuckles curling. "If I can help…" Her voice trembled before hardening again. "If there's anything I can do?"

"Um," I struggled for a moment, a demon of _damn if I do, damned if I don't_ sitting on either shoulder. "Would you might if I asked you a question?"

_"Oui, Monsieur."_

I paused, a drop of sweat gliding down from my temple to my jaw. "Did you…know that girl?"

Christine paused as well, and sighed. "Yes. She was a great dancer. She was the leader for _'Hannibal'_."

"And who is the lead now?" I wondered carefully. Christine remained silent.

I swallowed, feeling the familiar comfortableness of words not wanting to be said, digging for something Sherlock said to spur conversation. Raoul popped into my head.

"Look, about my partner. Neh, don't mind him, like I said. Besides that day you had that boy to protect you. That Raoul de Chagny…he really looks out for you, yeah?"

She was quiet for a moment before she responded. "Raoul is a wonderful friend of mine, yes. He's—he's great."

_Friend._ I chuckled inside, _tough luck mate._ _Have fun in that zone._

"But you know he has asthma? You two make quite a pair, with you fainting and him falling."

She cringed faintly, becoming somehow smaller, but her narrow face lit up in contempt. "I keep telling him to leave. This place isn't healthy for anyone!" She raised her voice suddenly—just beyond normal passionate tone in conversation. I suppose she was trying to scold Raoul from even here, but she just kept her eyes to the full-length mirror to my left.

"Do you want me to ask him to leave you alone, Christine?" I weighted my question carefully into the air, and I reached around to check the stress of her neck muscles, and then her heart beat.

Christie seemed wide eyed and shocked at this; and for a second I wondered if I had gone too far. Did they see me that time when I had stupidly eased-dropped?

Christine seemed to be caught in translating her surprised reasoning from French to English, for I watched her mouth stretch and fold itself in silent internal argument. "No, no, _Monsieur _Watson, please don't. Raoul…he's a stupid boy. But he's a kind one."

"That he is. Clever, I'd say, if you'd give him the chance." I smirked.

"Perhaps too clever for his own good," Christine agreed in a sad tone. I took the blood-pressure band from her arm, and took up my bag.

"Well, you gave your managers possible heart palpations for a week Miss Daaé , but your check up reads clear to me. Be sure to drink more water and eat something more substantial before your next performance, hm?"

Christine nodded again, the faintest trace of a real smile touching her lips that faded just as quickly.

"And," I stated again, my hand now on the door. Damn it all. Of course, it was now now I wanted to ask her about the murders, glad she was well enough to help…yet ironically I was dying to ask about eveything. But now wasn't the time. It wasn't the place. But perhaps I could give her opportunity to come to me. "Christine, I know what you're going through, with the pressure of the Opera falling apart, and the horrible incant down stairs and all. Please know that, if you need someone to talk to, I'm always here."

"Thank you _Monsieur_," Christine's blonde hair bounced as she stood, her eyes still not quite connecting with mine.

"All right well, be good now." I added as a farewell, and I opened the door to come within inches of Raoul's face. He quickly composed himself and stepped away from me, his brother nowhere to be seen.

"Is she—is she—?" He sputtered, but then he simply decided against my opinion and dashed passed me to the inside to see for himself. I nearly wanted to throw up my arms in surrender.

Teenagers.

**~*~Later~*~  
><strong>  
>"Sherlock," I finally found him back in the make-shift morgue, leaning over one of my medical books. He snapped it shut before I could see what it was he was looking at.<p>

"How is the girl?" He begrudged.

"She'll survive. I think it was just the heat of the lamps over the stage that got to her. She's a tiny lil' thing. I can't imagine she's very keen to the pressure of Prima Donna."

Sherlock's eyes met mine for a second with a patronizing "ah" leaving his lips. I locked my jaw. Here it comes. I had to find the reason for his actions towards her. And yet, here he was, hiding something yet again.

"But you already knew that, didn't you?" I added.

"That the girl wasn't sick? Of course." I titled my head a little.

"Is…is that why you were practically interrogating her with your eyes?"

Sherlock blinked, his expression honestly puzzled. "I did _what?"_

I rolled my eyes, my mannerisms reminiscent of Detective Inspector Lestrade back home. Maybe this is why he answers Sherlock with his eyes rather than his mouth. Where did it get you, really?

"You were glaring at her with all the intent that she had solved this case and not you,"

Sherlock shifted uneasily, his eyes still locked to mine. I wondered what was going on in his brain right now. Was he surprised that I had noticed? Was he upset? Or was it just another anti-social Sherlock mannerism that I was over-thinking. His eyes narrowed.

"I did no such thing."

"Sherlock,"

He rasped into a sigh, a hand flying to touch the side of his face for a second. His eyes flicked down and back to mine. Then to the floor.

"Sherlock," Back to mine again.

He gritted his teeth. "I…didn't mean," he paused, his voice taking on a strange, unsure tone. He blinked again. "I didn't mean for my..." His tightened his gaze even more. God, what was he trying to say?

"You didn't mean to come off as an ass," I finished.

"Yes!" Sherlock quipped, and then as if that answer solved the whole problem, he turned from me and back towards the bodies. "So as I was going to say, my plan for catching—"

"Sherlock, we're not done with this conversation," I lowered my voice urgently.

He froze, and turned slowly back towards me, a look of detest in his eyes. He spoke slowly to me when he said his words next:

"Don't sound like my pig brother, John. There's nothing left to be said."

I let that pick about his brother roll off my back. To bring up his brother was a pretty big insult for Sherlock. I was certainly getting into dangerous waters. But I wasn't going down without an answer. "You were practically ready to rip out her throat with your teeth Sherlock! That poor girl! What the _hell_ was going through your _head?"_

His lips formed a firm line, and he ducked down again, muttering something. Retreating.

"What?" I accused. He wasn't getting away.

He muttered it once more, even more indistinctly.

_"What?"_ I asked again, this time with ferocity._  
><em>  
>"I <em>said it wasn't in my head!" <em>Sherlock snapped, and he whipped back 'roud so quickly and with such a pained look I took a step back.

"Ah…" I swallowed, a tad out of place, my feelings wiped clean away. "I'm…sor—what?"

Sherlock took a breath, his shoulders actually rising with the effort. He forced himself to cross back over that line of indifference.

"What caused me to act the way wasn't in my head John. I heard something, and so I reacted."

I blinked, quickly thinking over the time I had spent in there with him. No one was talking, beyond me, and that didn't last very long. There was no music. No sounds.

"You heard something? What did you hear?"

"A voice." Sherlock said calmly.

"My voice?"

"_Not _your voice," Sherlock corrected icily.

There was a short pause.

"A voice," I returned, grasping the short straws of understanding. I finally echoed him, not so calmly and more shakily concerned. All the whispers of Lestrade's police men, other doctors, even Sherlock's brother suddenly boiling my blood, pumping their words straight to my head that Sherlock was…_was…_"Sherlock…you heard someone talking to you?"

"Yes, and it was real, John. Not in my head."

"But—"

"I'm _not_ making it up! I'm _not—"_His voice rose startlingly, and I quickly over-took its power. This was obviously something that I had forced open. Why do I do these things?

"I'm not _saying_ you are Sherlock! I'm not! It's _okay!"_ I yelled back. "It's _me_ you're talking to, remember? It's just me. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. I want to help._" _I said steadily_._This seemed to bring him back ever so slightly.

Sherlock blinked his wide silver eyes, reflective of my face, his mouth open just slightly in retaliation. He closed his eyes a second, his hand still to his temple, as if he had just been reliving an argument from a long time before.

"Do you think I'm mad, John?" Sherlock's voice was at normal level again, but the tone was off. Something was definitely wrong. He wouldn't open his eyes to look at me.

"I thought that you were, yeah, when you had daggers in your eyes over that girl. You were furious with anger. I've never seen you so—"

"John," He obviously didn't approve of my attempt at lightening the mood.

I sighed. "No, Sherlock, of course I don't think you're mad. I do think, however, that you need to explain yourself more before _I_go mad."

Sherlock considered my response, tapping a gloved hand over the chest of the dead male. His eyes opened.

"When I was in that room, simply looking at the girl. I heard a voice. A man's voice, loud, controlling, and very, very clear." He paused for a second as if waiting for an objection. After I didn't, he continued on quickly: "I glanced around discreetly, taking in everyone else's expression, as it was obvious no one else was experiencing what I was. I passed it off at first, completely ignoring it. But he didn't like that. It was when you touched the girl that he finally got my attention."

"Really? When you got so tediously livid, right then? Well what? What did he _say_?"

"He said he was going to kill you if we tried to help that girl." Sherlock said slowly, his eyes rising to the ceiling in causal aloofness. I knew better than to account his staring at the ceiling for what it was. I don't know if I'd have the strength to look at Sherlock either after something crazy like that. Oh God.

I was nearly speechless. "Kill _me?_" I sputtered out.

"Yes," He looked back to me instantly.

"God," I coughed in shock.

"And that girl knew it." He continued.

"What?

"That girl knew I could hear that man's voice. That no one else did at the time."

"How?"

"Because she can hear it too."

I pulled my head in my hands. _The bloody hell was this case?  
><em>  
>"Sherlock," I grasped trying to come back down to earth where things made sense. "If all of this was going on, why didn't you tell me right away? Why wait?"<p>

"Because I had to be sure of myself," He said a little too quickly, his words running together again.

"Be sure of yourself?"

Sherlock looked away from me as he said:

"This wasn't the first time I've heard voices, John."

I opened my mouth into what I hoped was an expression that wouldn't hurt his feelings. I'm sure it wasn't. I was gaping through and through.

"Do you still…" I trailed off.

"No. Not for a long time." He looked at me again, and I realized there was something else he had wanted to add that he probably couldn't bring himself to say. It flashed through my mind briefly, so quick and so transparently full of denial that I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge it fully until that night. 'Not for a long time…_Not until I met you.'_

Sherlock smiled tentatively, his eyes very serious. "Even so, I knew this was different. I've never heard a disembodied voice _threaten_anyone before. Certainly not you. But now that it has, I realize what I've been missing. It's the murderer, and it's obviously very clear that Christine is his next victim. We need to move fast, John, catch him now."

He walked past me and into the hall to where I could only stare after him in disbelief. But I had to wonder to myself. Where we really rushing to save the girl's life? I knew that's what I was doing.

Or was Sherlock Holmes honestly nervous about saving _mine?_

"You have a plan, then?" I called into the hall.

"Just wait for my call. Go back to the hotel if you must. Get some sleep. You dress up well in that suit, but _honestly_, you look like hell." And with that, Sherlock dashed off right away. I looked at my watch to find that it was nearly midnight.

I leaned against the cool wall, and closed my eyes. _Says the man that hears voices…_

* * *

><p><strong>French Translation:<strong>

Raoul's: Christine! Christine! Are you okay? For the love of God, Christine!"

**AN: **Thanks so much again folks, for the suggestions, corrections. I'm doing my best to keep everything in mind. Thank you. :3 Poor John...something tells me something big is up next...


	13. Captured

I awoke to my phone going off on Sherlock's bed a few feet away from mine own. My eyes collected the window of the calm, cold hotel room being left open, and air floated with the blackest of night breezes. I squinted at my mobile, my eyes reading the screen in blurs of rapid blinking and head shaking. It was Sherlock's number. He was calling me. I stared quizzically it for a second. Sherlock never calls when he can text. Must be important. Which probably means no breakfast.

The clock beside me corrected me. It wasn't really even morning yet. Or well, _my_version of morning, anyway. It was only 5: 13 am. Explains why it was so dark. But it also stirred something panicky inside of my chest. It meant that Sherlock still hadn't come back from the theater.

"Dammit Sherlock," I muttered as I threw myself out of bed, and then made my way over to Sherlock's bed. It was spotlessly made, (probably never even been slept in yet) and I snatched it up. I'm now rooming literally five feet away from the man, and I've seen yet to see him asleep. How does he do it?

"Hello?" I croaked.

"_John!"_ Sherlock began, excited, and breathless. "_It's just incredible, he's here! I've found him! You have to come at once! To the theater—bring your gun! The mur—"_

_Beep. Beep. Beep._The line went dead.

_Dammit Sherlock!_

I raced down to the Opera House, taking in the particular dull glow of the dawn that had just started in through the magnificent windows of the Main Hall. I slammed the doors shut behind me, my heart going wild in my chest. I clutched my mobile in my hand hard, dialing Sherlock's number and holding it to my ear. I noticed that the light behind me seemed to fail at reaching very far, and soon the marble cut pillars of the hundreds of years before casted shadows too overpowering for the careless reflection of light. Sherlock's phone continued to be the only sound that followed me as I stepped away from the doors and away from all the light that had once warmed the back of my shirt.

Telling myself that I wasn't stalling, I strapped my shoulder bag tighter and circled the perimeter of the hall, focusing on breathing evenly, memorizing the many other doors and windows to stop our target at any chance of escape. What did I have in there? My gun, general medical supplies. A translation book. Yup, prepared as always when it comes to Sherlock's major finds. Sherlock still didn't pick up, and when I checked for a proper signal, I noticed that my phone read out to me to be 5:23 in morning. Eleven minutes since Sherlock's call. I tried again.

_Click._

"Sherlock," I practically growled his name. "What have you done?"

A short pause of two seconds. The phone's silence struck me odd.

"Sherlock?" I whispered, the confusion no longer present. I gave my phone a shake, checking the connection and if it was faulty once more. My screen read out to me that we were still fully connected, but I still couldn't hear a thing.

"Sherlock, can you hear me?"

The silence of the phone seemed to burn my ears, and I felt a sudden pressure as I realized I was grinding the side of my head into the receiver. That was _it;_my knees felt weak as I found myself madly rushing for the house doors before my mind even considered why. The double doors flew open with a tremulous bang that collided against the vertical row of seats. The cushions, quivering from the impact, seemed to be applauding me like ghostly patrons anxiously awaiting a morning performance.

The dark theater sent a slight rush up my spine, and I hung up my mobile to dial Sherlock once more. My hand scratched through my bag, hot and steady as I felt the smooth, cold graze of mental. I pulled it out discreetly and cocked it, facing its barrel straight into the darkness. I marched the ails, my eyes taughted by the passing shadows as I continued to stare down the seemly staggering distance from my body to the stage. I kept blinking, forcing myself to look at the smallest patches of flashing light, but it was no use—my eyes just couldn't adjust fast enough from the bright dawn of my walk before. To distract myself, I tried Sherlock's mobile again.

The dialing of the electric buttons seemed extremely loud to my ears, practically making me jump. I held my breath, my strides coming to a halt.

_Ring…_

My brows furrow. The sound seemed to not just be radiating from the mobile's speakers. I glanced up, backwards, disorientated.

_Ring…_

My eyes looked forward, finally zeroing in. It was now that I understood. I slowly lowered the phone from my ear, my gun rising up in synchronization and moved slowly towards the ringtone, echoing from the stage. It seemed to take an eternity before I reached the steps, my throat pinhole tight, my entire body too tense, too nervous to keep a level head.

This was bad.

This was so very, very bad.

At my feet, at the center of the stage, was Sherlock's phone.

I hung up and the rush of still, sudden silence made my heart skip recklessly. Sherlock wasn't picking up because…

He wasn't here.

Sherlock wasn't _here._

I closed my eyes, nearly dropping to my knees with relief, but every nerve in my body steeled itself and held me up. Sherlock, his stupid, ridiculous, unplanning arse self was _safe_, thank_ God._I quickly rose up my gun, pointing it towards the darkness of the left wing, and slowly traced it to the right. This was trap. Of course this was a trap. A trap set from mental, over-thinking, protective arse me. But I certainly was not going to let this bastard think that I was completely done in by a trick of a mobile.

"All right," I kept my voice low, and aggressive. "You're got me. I'm here." My finger pulled slightly at the trigger. "But who are you?"

_Who are you—who are you—who are you…who are you…_my words reverberated from somewhere deep underneath me in a soft, nearly inaudible whisper. I glanced down quickly, only to refocus my stare as a glowing red light beamed at me from the darkness to my right. It blinked out from a second, only to reappear closer towards me. My aim instantly locked on it, and the flowing colour seemed to stop, and fade—then it blinked out completely, and was gone.

I took a step forward, and suddenly a fury of what seemed to be myriad voices lifted themselves from the wood, the ceiling, and the seats, falling and rising and bombarding my ears with such a shock that I couldn't even hear my own gasp.  
><em><br>"That fan Sherlock Holmes is right,"_ The voices whispered, glittering from the lights on the ceiling, echoing from the cambers to my left, and the floorboards that creaked beneath me. "_You are very much like a dog. Like a pet. Loyal. But humans are naturally loyal…"- _one voice cried, but a another took over:

_"And besides, he lacks organization, elegance…class. You do not need explosions to create fear—or at least, fear for one person!"_

_" -You aren't some stray—you're more like a toy. Just a thing!"_

"W-what?" I managed out, although I couldn't hear my own voice, just my lips frantically mouthing the word. So many voices, so many different people at once…I could only catch every other word_… Explosions?...__Moriarty?...  
><em>  
>My head started to pound, my knees shook. I couldn't think—I fought to breathe. My legs began to give way under the sudden weight of a hundred voices thundering in my skull.<p>

_"…But still, he fails to see the truth; The best fear is when only a select few know of it…not an entire police station…not a city full of people…no…when it's just you, and me, and time. You'll never know when it's coming. You just know that I control _everything."

I resisted covering my ears, as if that would stop it all. It felt so ungodly loud, so deep…almost like it was coming within _me._

_"-A broken toy, from what I've discovered."_

Someone cried above me._ "So very broken…but that is the art of…"_ a second voice…"_And why does he want you? What is that need?" A _third…"_Who am I?"_ Someone whispered into my left ear._ "Who are _you?_" _A scream from below me…  
><em><br>"—But I can fix that!" _A final voice whispered again, straining my ear and draining down my neck muscles, my head tight as a vice. I was clutching my head, nearly one my side, my balance off, my vision spinning. What was _happening _to me? How is this _happening?_

Before me, I managed to zero in on footsteps—thick, and careful as they shook the floor boards' beneath me. It was dark, too unnaturally dark to make it out: but someone was coming for me. I forced myself to think through my confusion—my head was silent once more, only my nerves were fried. I pulled my gun and from my side and brought out a second hand to study my aim. I wouldn't miss.

My breathing was the only sound I could hear as it pulled dry air into my lungs, placing too much pressure onto my ribcage. My hands were shaking so matter how tightly I pulled them together. I couldn't swallow. A chill ran from the top of my hair, down my spine, to my legs. Somewhere in stage right, a fog machine roared to life, making me jump and the air became damp and misty, and burned each time I swallowed. Soon, I wouldn't be able to see at all, not even darkness. Just a choking, hyperventilating mist.

But that didn't matter.

A shadow fell over me from above, although I could just make out the frame of a tall, angular looking man. He continued to walk—no, _glide _towards me—something else was trailing the ground…a jacket…a coat? I nearly called for Sherlock, I don't know why. As my heart beat counted out the precious seconds between me and my possible death, I could only think how it might be him.

I raised my gun again, my arms suddenly steady. Suddenly ready to die, or to live. I don't know. In the facial region, that same bright red light as before blinked back on. I shivered as I continued to stare at it, feeling memorized like a rodent to a snake. I nearly pulled my finger all the way down on the trigger before the shadow spoke: saying the only words that would make me think twice.

_"…You're not scared, are you John?"_

It was _Sherlock's_ voice. Sherlock's_ exact_words to me.

I gasped franticly, my aim going everywhere. How? How was this possible? Was it Sherlock? Do I shoot? It couldn't be…It was….it was _unbelievable._ It was _impossible!_ It—it was _unreal._

"Oh, come on," The shadow snapped again in Sherlock's unmistakably annoyed tone, the red light blinking. "Don't be so easily impressed like the rest of those lemmings. It's very easy to do, really, just down a few octaves. His voice is rather deep, isn't it? Very easy to match his pitch though—he talks _a lot_, doesn't he? Get up, don't drabble like rat. The center stage is for men that don't mind pressure. And I know _you_don't mind pressure."

"Who are you?" I lifted onto my knee, and then finally, onto my feet, ready for a fight with this shadowy man. I was surprised he let me get this far, although I did have the advantage of a gun. But something told me that my gun wasn't the reason he was keeping his distance.

He was standing there because he just _wanted _to.

_"John Watson_," The murderer answered, his voice suddenly changing into a close rendition of my own voice, like he had stolen my vocal cords. "Ah, well, as even your mundane ears can presumably hear, I need more work on _your_voice."

There was snap from his direction, and I rolled out of the way of a blinding flash of a spot light that flooded where we were standing, and then quickly stared to dim into darkness. I remained in the shadows, constantly moving, but the man before me refused to move. I memorized what I could of him as the darkness fell once more. He was tall—and I was right in my brain to think of Sherlock—because he certainly _did_ look like him. He wore a long, trailing, water-proof coat that lay twisted and compounded across his narrow shoulders. Thin, long legs. His black shoes shined in the light, and he had gloves that cut of at the knuckles, leaving behind nothing but what I could only make out be skeletal fingers. His arms lay still, guarded by his coat. He had proper dress-pants that were ripped at the ankle and led up his leg, only to be carefully sown together with what I could only guess was….some type of _wire._His belt was leather, sown with dots of little red gems stones. I couldn't see any part of his face—all the light was gone by now. Once more, that red beam of light from his facial area continued to glow.

I heard him take a short inhale of breath just before I pulled my hands over my ears, too late to mentally brace for what was coming. The voices from before entered into my skull in a fury of screams, arguments and casual conversation. I clenched my fists, unable to comprehend anything that was going on—and I opened my mouth to scream:

_"STOP!"_

Surprisingly. Silence. They did.

"_I will honour a man's last request_," The murderer's voice came from behind me. I refused to let that head-trip happen again, and I made a mad dash for a random wing, unsure of my direction now. I felt the cold, golden knob of a door, and tried to brace it open. Of course, it was locked. I spun around, and desperately cross center stage—only to jump back and nearly fall as I caught myself running towards the only source of light I could see: that burning red glow.

It finally crashed on me. I knew that glow. I_ knew_ that glow! I had seen it in Raoul's opera box! I had seen moving through the dark, sparking around corners as I moved through the night with Sherlock. I knew that glow. I kept repeating it dumbly to myself in my mind, unable to stop. I knew that glow…I knew that glow…  
><em><br>_I stopped running, and could only stare dumbly at the shadows before me, grateful for the sudden gift of silence that had found its way into my head. I felt alone, solitary for the moment. Another snap, the lights flickered again, and in that disorienting flash I felt something swoosh by me. I could only recognized the next sound from my years of medical school as I heard the opening of a mouth and the exhale of a soft blow of air. A sharp pain licked the side of my head, my eyes striking shut in surprise. When I opened them again, the light was gone.

I looked all around me pointlessly.

_"I can tell you are not a fan of the older arts. But how about the garbage on television now a days? Are you familiar with movies?"_

His voice floated above me now, and spiraled down from the towering beams that held the sandbags. I caught a fleeting piece of memory of when I had watched the sandbag fall and nearly hit Carlotta. I craned my neck up as I fought to keep my gun straight. The ceiling staring to spin, like he had damaged my inner-ear with just a puff of air. I didn't answer—and so he prompted forward._  
><em>  
><em>"Then guess where this is from: 'Want to see a magic trick?'"<em>

The voice was…behind me now?

"Moriarty?" I gasped—turning left—turning right—Dammit, where was that voice coming from? He couldn't possibly?

"_Oh please, Doctor Watson_," The voice hushed. I swear I felt something brush past me again, connecting to my shoulder, hitting its scars with fine, cold air. "_I consider myself a master of all trades. Even _I_ know how to avoid a gun."  
><em>  
>Despite my clenched fists, adrenaline lining my muscles, gauging for a fight, I shivered.<p>

"_You're running everything I am, boy!_" The shadows hissed, coming from the floor, the ceiling, and the walls! It seemed to come for nowhere and yet everywhere at once. Like my mind had been blown open and an intruder had stormed inside. "But_ yet_, _you are not the one I want! Holmes! I will make you give him to me! You WILL give up that comfort which controls! I have warned him! YOU WILL NEVER SEE YOUR FRIEND AGAIN!"_

Nervous from my pervious captures involving someone wanting the man, I swiftly corrected him.

"I am Sherlock Holmes!"

"_Silence!_ _Do you take me for a fool, doctor? Silence, silence_! _You may prefer a gun, but I prefer a more intimate death,_" Rough arms were suddenly about my throat—strong, calloused—or was it a rope? Merely seconds of struggling, my world tilted as I did everything I could to break the hold. In my confusion, I pulled down on the trigger, and my gun fired harshly into the floor, narrowly missing my foot.

I pushed my back into the darkened shadows, trying to use my spine to pin him, but nothing was there but bare, cold stone. It was like I was fighting nothing. The grip tightened, my breath squeezing from my lungs. I coughed, letting go of the rope and swinging wildly up— the tips of my fingers catching onto my attacker's weapon. It seemed to do the trick as I pulled down hard, stunning the both of us. I guess he figured no one would bother to fight _up_.

I slammed the back of my head brutally against the stone wall, the impact far too strong for me to tell if it was cracked open or not. I felt the bile rise to my throat, and instantaneously I rolled to my side and vomited what little food I had managed to eat before Sherlock pulled me away from the previous day.

Oh god, the _pain_. My vision swam for a moment. I managed to twist a weak arm to grasp the back of my head, feeling the slick, warm wetness that couldn't possibly just be from the slime oozing down the aging walls. Everything was slowing down now, becoming fuzzy. I forced a swallow, tasting my blood. I felt like I was trying to swallow cotton.

When I got to my feet, my attacker did the most usual thing, however.

He began to sing.

It was French, soft, low and my ears were ringing with its power as it bounced off the walls like the shattering of a gun's bullet, and just as deadly. My balanced swayed; I threw my arm out just in time to catch the cold wall. My slight was swirling—my eyes drooped. All I wanted to do was sleep. It sounded fantastic now, like no one in a million years had thought of doing so. As soon as I slid down the wall, and loud booming noise was breaking through to me. Pounding at my skull, as if it was trying to tell me that my idea of sleep was wrong…silly…how could sleep ever be wrong…

Then I gasped as thimble, thin fingers touched at the back of my head, cold and probing. A rough arm gripped my jacket, and I was hauled to my feet, moaning at the impact. What was going on? Why the hell wouldn't anyone let me _sleep,_God damn it? That same blasting sound, coming from deep within me was still going on, and now it seemed that those hands could touch it. Wonderful…could he make it stop…?

"You have a very strong heart to stop my voice," a small, soft voice breathed into my ear.

That…sound…was my heart beat?

_"No one has ever stopped MY voice!_" Loud. So fucking loud. His voice seemed to break all barriers of sound as he screamed into my ear. I think I tried to scream back at him, but it was hard enough to keep my eyes open, let alone make out what I was seeing.

Something seemed to stir past my neck like purring of a cat. "But how to stop your heart? You're like a mere children's toy. But sadly…if I took out your batteries, you could cease to be. What a waste, a pure waste, as are most humans. But you're the toy of someone whom I need to have. I have to stop him. So if I must fix you to bring him, I shall."

Light, demure laughter bubbled from this voice, turning, like the floating of a sea, churning and endless. It was a beautiful, remarkable sound…a sound that…that was and yet wasn't just in my head.

Sherlock was right. That voice. It was real. It was so real.

It was going to kill me.

"Then, perhaps, after it all, you shall become _my _toy…and not that bloody sleuths. When you awaken, you must remember that you belong to me,"

He whispered this, and then something once more entirely in French, so smoothly against my ear, so passionately and tenderly that my eyes shut closed and I wanted nothing but to do what the voice told me. Anything that voice told me—it was making the hurt in my head go away—if not that my heart beating was growing louder, and faster—but I didn't care. Unconscious was pulling me under, his voice like a blanket.

"…You belong to _me_ now, John Watson," 

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Well, well, well! Poor John! Guess what guys? That's sadly the end of my 75 page, poorly fixed, awkwardly cut up update! Whew! I shall return! Thank you VERY much for everyone that has enjoyed or review so far! :D


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